
,^ 



Book_ 






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,::s 



INDKX. 



Address of — 



Altgeld, J. P. (111.), By invitation of Convention 125 

Atwood, J. H. (Kansas), On report on Credentials 132-136 

Blackburn, J. C, S. (Ky.), By invitation of Convention • 121 

Bailey, J. W. (Texas), Seconding Bland's nomination 291 

Blake, T. W. (Texas), On report on Credentials 149 

Bragg, Edward (Wis.), on State privilege 329 

Brennan, John L. (Wis.), On report on Credentials 137 

Brice, Calvin S. (Ohio), On contracts offered by cities 52-56 

Brucker, Ferdinand (Mich.), On report on Credentials 153 

Bryan, William J. (Neb.), On Resolutions , . 227 

Bryan, William J. (Neb.), Speech of acceptance 391 

Burk, William R. Cal.), nominating Sewall 343 

Clayton, Henry D. (Ala.), On Report Committee on Temporary 

Organization 92 

Clayton, Henry D. (Ala.), On resolutions to Harrity andiSheerin. . . 388 

Crain, T. C. T. (N. Y.), Presenting claims of New York 38 

Crosby, J. C. (Mass.), On report on Credentials. 136 

Culbertson, C. A. (Texas), Nominating Bland 344 

Cummings, Amos (N. Y.), Withdrawing Sibley's name 359 

Currie, J. H. (N. C), Nominating Clarke 338 

Daniel, John W. (Va.). Accepting temporary chairmanship 90 

Dockery, E. J. (Wis.), Seconding Bryan's nomination 296 

Dockery, E. J. (Wis.), Regarding Unit Rule 308 

Duncan, John M. (Texas), On Report Committee Temporary Or- 
ganization 87 

Fellows, John R. (N.Y.), Presenting claims ofNew York 40 

Fellows, John R. (N. Y.), On report on Temporary Organization. . 81 

Fithian, George (111.), Seconding Sibley's nomination 349 

Follett, John F. (Ohio), Presenting claims of Cincinnati 31 

Foote, W. W. (Cal.), Seconding Blackburn's nomination 286 

Ford, Simeon (N. Y.), Presenting claims' of New York 36 

Francis, David R. (Mo.), Presenting claims of St. Louis 44 

Goodrich, Adams A. (111.), Presenting claims of Chicago 27 

Gorman, A. P. (Md.), To National Committee 20 

Grady, Thomas F. (N. Y.), On report on Credentials 157 

Green, Rev. Thos. E. (Iowa), prayer 113-190-297 

Harrity, William F. (Penn.), Calling Convention to order 69 

Harrity, William F. (Penn.), Nominating Pattison 298 

Harrity, William F. (Penn.), To National Committee 381 



iv Index. 

Address of — 

Harrity, William F. (Penn.), On Resolution of thanks 386 

Hill, David B. (N. Y.), Supporting minority report on resolution. . 210 

Hogg, J. S. (Tex.), By invitation of Convention 114 

Howell, Clark, Jr. (Ga.), To National Committee 23 

Howry, C. B. (Miss,), On date for Convention 6 

Ingalls, M. E. (Ohio), Presenting claims of Cincinnati 29 

James, Ollie (Ky.), Withdrawing Blackburn's name 322 

Johnson, Thomas (Ohio), Nominating Fithian 340 

Jones, Paul (Ark.), Nominating Bland 287 

Jones, J. K. (Ark.), On report of Committee on Resolutions 209 

Jones, W. A. (Va.), Withdrawing Daniel's name 346 

Kernan, T. J. (La.), Seconding Bryan's nomination 267 

Klutz, T. K. (N. C), Seconding Bryan's nomination 267 

Ladd, C. K. (III.), On report on temporary organization 89 

Lewis, H. T. (Ga.), Nominating Bryan 265 

Long, G. S. (Ohio), Withdrawing McLean's name 365 

Maloney, Thomas (Wash.), Nominating Lewis 338 

Marston, B. W. (La.), On report on temporary organization 86 

Marston, B. W. (La.), Nominating McLean 337 

Mattingly, Robert E. (D. of C), Seconding McLean's nomination. 298 
McDermott, Allen L. (N. J.), On report on temporary organization 73 

McKnight, W. F. (Mich.), On report on Credentials 151 

McLaurin, A, J. (Miss.), On report on Credentials 140 

Miller, M. A. (Ore.), Nominating Pennoyer 298-340 

Morgan, J. T. (Ala.), On date for Convention 11 

Morris, Free P. (111.), Seconding Sibley's nomination 346 

O'Donnell, T. J. (Colo.), On report on Credentials 161 

O'Sullivan, J. T. (Mass.), Nominating George F. Williams 335 

Overmeyer, David (Kans.), By invitation of Convention 125 

Overmeyer, David (Kans.), Seconding Bland's nomination 260 

Owen, Robert L. (I. T.), On representation of Territories 22 

Pasco, Samuel (Fla.), On date for Convention 7 

Patrick, A. W. (Ohio), Nominating McLean 298 

Powers, O. W. (Utah), By invitation of Convention 156 

Powers, O. W. (Utah), Nominating Daniel for Vice-President 346 

Russell, William E, (Mass ), supporting minority report on resolu- 
tions 224 

Rhea, John S. (Ky.), nominating Blackburn 283 

Rawlins, J. L. (Utah), seconding nomination of Bland 293 

Saulsbury, John F. (Del.), On report on Credentials 146 

Scott, John (Me.), Seconding Sewall's nomination 350 

Sewall, Arthur P. (Me.), Acceptance 438 

Sheehan, William F. (N. Y.), On report on Credentials 148 

Sheerin, Simon P. (Ind.), On resolutions of thanks 387 

Sherley, T. H. (Ky.), On date for Convention 6 

Shewalter, J. D. (Mo.), Nominating Sibley 342 

Sloan, Ulric (Ohio), On John R. McLean 347 



Index. v 

Address of — 

Smith, G. Waldo (N. Y.), Presenting claims of New York 33 

Smith, T. A. (Minn.), Seconding nomination of Boies 281 

St. Claire, J. W. (W. Va.), On report on temporary organization.. . 90 

St. Clair, J. W. (W. Va.), seconding nomination of Blackburn 295 

Stevenson, E. G. (Mich.), On report on Credentials 146 

Stires, Rev. Ernest M. (Ill), prayer 69 

Stone, William J. (Mo.), Presenting claims of St. Louis 48 

Stone, William J. (Mo.). Withdrawing Bland's name 323-361 

Stone, William J. (Mo.), Advocating adjournment 330 

Tarpey, M. F. (Cal.), On report on temporary organization 281 

Taylor, S. M. (Ark.), On report on Credentials 139 

Thomas, C. S. (Colo.), On date for Convention 9 

Thomas, C. S. (Colo.) On report on temporary organization 78 

Thomas, C. S. (Colo.), On report on Credentials 154 

Thomas, C. S. (Colo."*, Seconding Sewall's nomination 344 

Thomas, C. S. (Colo.), Seconding motion for vote of thanks to Har- 

rity and Sheerin 385 

Thurman, Allen W. (N. M.), On date for Convention 15 

Tillman, B. R. (S. C), On report Committee on Resolutions 199 

Trippett, O. A. (Cal.), Seconding Matthews' nomination 275 

Turpie, David (Ind.), Nominating Matthews 269 

Turpie, David (Ind.), Withdrawing Matthews' name 325 

Van W^agenen, A. (Iowa), Withdrawing Boies' name 355 

Vest, G. G. (Mo.), Presenting claims of St, Louis 49 

Vest, G. G. (Mo.), Nominating Bland '. . . 257 

Vilas, W. F. (Wis.), On report on Resolutions 220 

Walbridge, C. P. (Mo.), Presenting claims of St. Louis 47 

Wallace, Hugh C. (Wash.), On date for Convention 9 

Waller, T. M. (Conn.), On report on temporary organization 75 

Waller, C. E. (Ala.), on report on temporary organization 80 

Weadock, T. E. (Mich.), On report on Credentials 160 

White, Frederick (Iowa),' Nominating Boies. ... 276 

W^hite, S. M. (Cal.), Permanent chairman 171 

Williams, George Fred (Mass.), On invitation of Convention 131 

Williams, J. R. (111.), Nominating Bland 263 

Ballot on — 

Date for Convention 19 

Place for Convention 58-64 

Report Committee on Credentials 166 

Resolutions 241, 247, 248, 249 

President , 311, 361, 319, 321, 327 

Vice-President 354, 359, 361, 365, 368, 371 

Blackburn, Joseph, Nominated for President 283 

Bland, Richard P., Nominated for President 257 

Bland, Richard P., Nominated for Vice-President 344 

Bryan, William J., Nominated for President 265 



Yi Index. 

Bryan, William J., nominated for Presidency, unanimously. ....... 

Bryan, William J., Speech of acceptance 391 

Bryan, William J., Letter of acceptance. . . : 429 

Boies, Horace, Nominated for President 276 

Call for National Committee meetings 3-335 

Call for Convention 65 

Campau, Daniel J., Chairman Campaign Committee 390 

Canda, F. E., Vote of thanks to 385 

Chicago, chosen unanimously for Convention 64 

Clark, W. A., Presenting silver gavel to Convention 172 

Clarke, Walter, Nominated for Vice-President 338 

Cogan, T. J., Made Permanent Secretary 167 

Coliseum Harden Amusement Company's invitation to America 365 

Committees — 

National Committee of 1892 ; 1-6S 

Consideration of permanent hall for conventions report.. 3 

On Convention arrangements 32-3-67 

To escort Temporary Chairman to Chair 98 

On Credentials 109-136 

On Permanent Organization 110-167-170 

On Rules 108-110 

On Resolutions Ill, 191, 196, 198 

National Committee of 1892, last meeting 382 

National Committee of 1896, organization of 389 

Notification Committee 376 

Executive Committee of National Committee of 1896 390 

Campaign Committee of National Committee of 1896 390 

Communications to National Committee 5 

Contract of Chicago Committee 54 

Convention — 

First day 54 

Second day 69-113 

Third day 136-190 

Fourth day 297-329 

Fifth day 334 

Daniel, J. W 72, 97, 346 

Delegates, List of 174 

Dickinson, Edward B., Official Stenographer 71 

Finley, E. E., Member committee to escort White to chair 171 

Fithian, George, Nominated for Vice-President 340 

Gordon, Basil B., Resignation from National Committee -. , 2 

Harrity, William F., Resolutions thanking 370 • 

Hill, David B., Nominated for temporary chairman 71 

Hirsheimer, Louis D., Made permanent assistant secretary 167 

Hosford, Frank, Secretary Campaign Committee 390 

Jones, James K., Member committee to escort Daniel to chair 98 



Index. vii 

Jones, James K., Elected chairman of National Committee of 1396. . 389 

Keating, R. P., Member committee to escort Daniel to chair 98 

Letter of acceptance of William J. Bryan 429 

Letter of acceptance of Arthur P. Sewall 441 

Lewis, James Hamilton, Nominated for Vice-President 338 

Martin, John L, Sergeant-at-Arms 71-167 

Matthews, Claude, Nominated for President 269 

McConnell, Samuel P., Member committee to escort White to chair. 171 

McLean, John R, Nominated for President and Vice-President. 289, 337 

Nelson, John C, Principal (temporary) Reading Clerk 71 

Pattison, Robert E., nominated for President 298 

Pennoyer, Sylvester, nominated for President and Vice President.. 298-340 

Permanent Organization 167 

Platform — 

Majority Report 191 

Minority Report 196 

Hill's Amendments 198 

Official Platform 250 

Resolution of Thanks to — 

William F. Harrity 108-370 

John W. Daniel, S. M. White and James M. Richardson 369 

Secretaries and Assistant Secretaries 369 

Chicago and citizens 370 

William F. Harrity, on behalf of free silver people 370 

William F. Harrity, by National Committee of 1892 '. . 384 

Simon P. Sheerin, by National Committee of 1892, 384 

Resolutions in Reference to — 

Rules 108 

Representation from Territories 19 

Roll Call of States for naming Committees 109 

Tickets for Nebraska delegation 173 

Authority to fix time and place for next convention 369 

Preparation of proceedings by official stenographer 369 

Secretary and assistants of Convention (temporary) 71 

Secretaries Convention (permanent) 445 

Sewall, A. P., nominated for Vice-President 343 

Sewall, A. P., nomination made unanimous 369 

Sewall, A. P., speech of acceptance 438 

Sewall, A. P., letter of acceptance 441 

Sheerin, Simon P., Temporary Secretary 71 

Sibley, Joseph, nominated for Vice-President 342 

Signatures of Cincinnati, New York and St. Louis Committees 55 

St, John, Wm. P., selected Treasurer of National Committee of 1896, 389 

Temporary Organization, Minority Report 71 

Temporary Organization, Majority Report 72 



viii Index, 

Two-thirds Rule, Chairman's Decision 322 

Vest, G. G,, Member of Committee to escort White to chair. . . , 171 

Vice-Presidents of Convention 445 

Wade, E. B,, Permanent Reading Clerk 167 

Walsh, Chas. A,, selected Secretary of National Committee of 1896. . 389 
White, Stephen M., Member of Committee to escort Daniel to chair, 98 
White, Stephen M., Permanent Chairman 171 




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DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. 



MEETING, JANUARY 16, 1896. 



The Democratic National Committee m.et on the 16th day 
of January, 1896, pursuant to call, at the Arlington Hotel, in 
the City of Washington, D. C, at 12 o'clock noon. 

The Chair (William F. Harrity, of Pennsylvania:) The 
meeting will be in order. Gentlemen who are not members 
of the Committee will be kind enough to retire, as this is to 
be an executive or private session of the Committee. 

Gentlemen of the Committee : There is a gentleman here 
who wants a snap shot at you ; the sooner that is taken, the 
sooner we will be rid of him. 

The Secretary will proceed to call the roll and note sub- 
stitutions or corrections, if any are to be made. 

The Secretary (S. P. Sheerin, of Indiana) then pro- 
ceeded to call the roll of States and Territories, which were 
represented by members of the Committee in person or by 
proxy, as follows : 

Alabama, John T. Morgan (Proxy for Henry D.Clayton). 

Arkansas. W. L. Terry (Proxy for U. M. Rose). 

California^ Stephen M. White (Proxy for M. F.Tarpey), 

Colorado^ Chas. S. Thomas. 

Connecticut, Carlos French. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 



Delaware, 

Florida^ 

Georgia, 

Idaho, 

Illinois, 

Indiana, 

Iowa, 

Kansas, 

Kentucky, 

Louisiana, 

Maine, 

Maryland, 

Massachusetts, 

Michigan, 

Minnesota, 

Mississippi, 

Missouri, 

Montana, 

Nebraska, 

Nevada, 

New Hampshire, 

New Jersey^ 

New York, 

North Carolina, 

North Dakota, 

Ohio, 

Oregon, 

Pennsylvania, 

Rhode Island, 

South Carolina, 

South Dakota, 

Tennessee, 

Texas, 

Utah, 

Vermont, 



(Proxy for Lewis C. Vandergrift). 



(Proxy for Frank W. Beane). 



Chas. W. McFee 
Samuel Pasco. 
Clark Howell, Jr. 
J. C. Edwards 
Ben T. Cable. 
Simon P. Sheerin. 
J.J. Richardson. 
Chas. W. Blair. 
Thos. W. Sherley. 
James Jeffries. 
Arthur Sewall. 
Arthur P. Gorman. 

John W. Corcoran (Proxy for Josiah Quincy). 
Daniel J. Campau. 
(Absent). 
Chas B. Howry. 
John G. Prather. 
A. J. Davidson. 
Tobias Castor. 
Clinton B. Davis 
A. W. SuUov/ay. 
Willard F. Ross 
William F. Sheehan. 
M. W. Ransom. 
W. N. Roach (Proxy for Wm. C. Leistikow). 

Calvin S. Brice. 

Henry C. Grady (Proxy for E. D. McKee). 

William F.Harrity. 

John D. Crimmins (Proxy for Samuel R. Honey). 

M. L. Donaldson. 

James M. Woods. 

Holmes Cummins, 

Roger Q. Mills (Proxy for O. T. Holt). 

Caleb W. West (Proxy for Samuel A. Merritt). 

Bradley B. Smalley. 



(Proxy forR. P. Keating). 
(Proxy for Miles Ross). 



Virginia, 

The Chair : The resignation of Mr. Basil B. Gordon, as 
a member of this Committee from Virginia, has been duly- 
tendered and the officers of the Committee advised of that 
fact. At the same time, they were also advised that the 
Chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee, of 
Virginia, Mr. J. Taylor EUyson, had been recommended by 
that committee, as the successor of Mr. Gordon. What is 
the pleasure of the Committee.? 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland: I move that his name 
be entered as a member upon the roll of the Committee. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 3 

This motion being duly seconded, was put to a vote and 
carried. 

The Secretary continued the roll call as follows : 

Virginia, J. Taylor E Hyson, 

WasliingtoTiy Hugh C. Wallace. 

West Virginia, John Sheridan. 

Wisconsin E. C. Wall. 

Wyoming, Wm. Thomas (Proxy for W. L. Kuykendall). 

Alaska, L. W. Nieman (Proxy for A. L. Delaney). 

Arizona, Chas. M. Shannon. 

District of Columbia, James L. Norris. 

New Mexico, . Allen W. Thurman (Proxy for H. B. Ferguson). 

Oklalioma, Leslie G. Niblack (Proxy for T. M. Richardson.) 

Indian Territory, Robert L. Owen. 

The Chair : The Secretary will now read the official call 
for the meeting. 

The Secretary then read the official call for the meeting, 
as follows : 



DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. 

LoGANSPORT, Indiana, December 14, 1895. 
Dear Sir: 

A meeting of the Democratic National Committee will be 
held at the Arlington Hotel, in the City of Washington, D. C, on Thurs- 
day, the 16th of January, 1896, at 12 o'clock M., to fix the time and place 
of holding the Democratic National Convention for the nomination of 
candidates for President and Vice-President of the United States, and 
for such other business as may come before the Committee. 

Yours respectfully, 

SIMON P. SHEERIN, 

Secretary, 

The Chair : Under the provision of the call, it would 
seem to the Chair to be in order to make report from the 
sub-committee which was charged with the consideration of 
the resolution offered by Gen. P. A. Collins, of Massa- 
chusetts, in the Democratic National^ Convention of 1892, 
looking to arrangements for holding the Convention in a 
permanent hall, which would accommodate only the dele- 
gates, alternates, members of the National Committee and the 
press. The Committee, after consideration of the subject, is 



4 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

unanimously of the opinion that there is no occasion for a 
departure from what has been the practice in the past, of 
having accommodations for a reasonable number of specta- 
tors, as well as delegates, alternates, etc., and for so many as 
is consistent with the orderly conduct of proceedings in the 
Convention. What is the pleasure of the Committee.? 

It was moved and seconded that the report of the Sub- 
Committee be adopted. The motion was put to a vote and 
carried. 

Mr. Wallace, of Washington : I move that we proceed 
to fix a time for holding the next Democratic National Con- 
vention, and in order to ascertain the sense of this meeting, I 
move that Tuesday, June 80, 1896, at 12 o'clock, noon, be 
iixed as the time for holding the Convention. 

The Chair : The gentleman from Washington moves 
that Tuesday, June 80, 1896, be fixed as the time for holding 
the next Democratic National Convention. Before discussion 
of the question the Chair would like the opportunity of saying 
that communications have been received, during the past 
three months, from many different commerical bodies and 
trade organizations, advising in favor of a late Convention. 
The Chair thinks that it would be proper, under the circum- 
stances, to read the list of the organizations from which such 
communications have been received ; and then it will be for 
the Committee to say whether or not they desire that all of 
the communications shall be read. 

Senator Pasco, of Florida : Will the Chair state the 
time for the Republican Convention } 

The Chair : June 16. The Secretary will read the 
names of those bodies from w^hich communications have been 
received. The communications are all of the same general 
tenor and effect. 

The Secretary then read to the Committee the following 
list of commercial and trade organizations, viz. : 

The Cleveland Chamber of Commerce. 
Detroit Chamber of Commerce. 
The Commercial Club of Kansas City. 
Commercial Club (Webb City, Missouri). 
The Denver Chamber of Commerce. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 5 

The Board of Trade of the City of Mankato, Minnesota. 
Buffalo Real Estate Exchange. 
The Board of Trade of the City of Baltimore. 
Scranton Board of Trade (Scranton, Pennsylvania). 
The Galveston Chamber of Commerce. 

The Board of Trade of the City of Fall River, Massachusetts. 
Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. 
Chamber of Commerce, Nashville, Tennessee, 
Jackson General Welfare Association (Jackson, Michigan). 
Boston Chamber of Commerce. 
Board of Trade of San Francisco. 
New Bedford Board of Trade (Massachusetts). 
Keokuk Business Men's Association (Iowa). 
Buffalo Merchants* Exchange. 
The National Live Stock Exchange (Chicago). 
The Wheeling Chamber of Commerce (West Virginia). 
The National Hardware Association of the United States (Phila 
delphia). 

The Chair : What is the pleasure of the Committee 
with reference to the communications themselves ? 

Mr. Smalley, of Vermont : I move that they be placed 
on file. 

The Chair : You have heard the motion made by the 
gentleman from Vermont, that the communications be placed 
on file. 

Which motion, duly seconded, was put to a vote and 
carried. 

The Chair : The question is now upon the motion offered 
by the gentleman from Washington, Mr. Wallace. 

Mr. Ellyson, of Virginia : I would like to say to the 
Committee that the time would be very inconvenient for 
many of us in the vSouth, for the reason that on that very day 
there will be assembled in Richmond a convention of the United 
Confederate Veterans, w^hich includes representatives from all 
the Southern States. We expect a very large attendance 
upon that occasion. It would certainly be impossible for 
many of us, who had expected to have the pleasure of attending 
both Conventions, to be away from Richmond at that time. 
Those of you v^ho are from the Southern States will know 
that the United Confederate Veterans embrace representa- 
tives from all of the Southern States. If some other day 



6 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

could be fixed, which would be as equally agreeable to the 
members of the Committee, it would certainly be a gratifica- 
tion to us in Virginia, and in some of the other Southern 
States as well. 

Mr. Thomas, of Colorado : I move as an amendment to 
the motion made by the member from Washington, that the 
date of the Convention be fixed for Tuesday, the 9th day of 
June. 

The Chair : The gentleman from Colorado, Mr. Thomas, 
moves to amend by substituting the date of Tuesday, the 9th 
of June. 

Mr. Sherley, of Kentucky : Having only in view the 
interests of the party, I think the date to be selected ought to 
be one after the Republican Convention, and that sufficient 
length of time should elapse to enable us to see the result upon 
the public of their platform and their selection of candidates. I 
think instead of making it earlier than the 80th day of June, it 
ought surely be later than that. The 15th day of July, to me , would 
be a more appropriate date, giving sufficient time after the 
Republican Convention; but, as I am not desiring to be 
an extremist at all I will ofPeras a substitute Tuesday, July 7. 
I think Tuesday comes on the 7thof July — or is it on the 6th ? 

The Chair : The Chair thinks that July 7 will fall on 
Tuesday; June 80, being Tuesday, July 7, seven days later, 
will be Tuesday. 

Mr. Sherley, of Kentucky : I offer as a substitute that it 
be fixed Tuesday, the 7th day of July. 

The Chair : You have heard the further amendment 
offered by the gentleman from Kentucky. 

Mr. Howry, of Mississippi : I do not know what may be 
embraced in these petitions, resolutions or communications 
from the different trade organizations ; but so far as the people 
in the South are concerned I think that they favor an early 
Convention. It may be it would be better to have it a week 
or so after the Republican Convention. I think a decided 
sentiment in the Southern country, so far as I can gather it 
from the newspapers, is in favor of an early Convention. I 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 7 

think we would be doing good service to the Democratic party 
to have an early Convention ; therefore, I favor an early Con- 
vention. Perhaps the motion of the gentleman from Colorado, 
which fixes it before the Republican Convention, ought not to 
prevail. Under all the circumstances, we had bettercome alittle 
after the Republicans this time, although we ought to have it 
as early after their Convention as possible. 

I move as a substitute for the motion offered by the gentle- 
man from Washington, Tuesday, June 23rd. In this day of 
telegraphic and rapid intercommunication, the effects of any 
platform and the results of any Republican Convention are soon 
taken in by the country. In order to accommodate all the inter- 
ests, I move Tuesday, the 23rd day of June, be fixed as the date. 

The Chair : The Chair is not entirely clear as to whether 
it is exactly in order to further amend the motion, tw^o amend- 
ments having been already offered. 

Mr. Howry, of Mississippi : My motion is a substitute. 

Mr Gorman, of Maryland : The vote should be taken on 
the latest date first. 

The Chair : The gentleman from Maryland suggests 
that when the vote comes to be taken, that it ought to be 
taken on the latest date first. 

Mr. Pasco, of Florida : I am entirely in favor of an early 
Convention, but an early Convention now is very different 
from what would have been an early Convention a few years 
ago. I think July is abundantly early, and I would have it the 
second rather than the first Tuesday. 

If the Democratic Convention is held immediately after the 
Republican Convention, there will be no time for the people 
throughout the country to confer with their delegates after the 
adjournment of that Convention, because in distant States the 
delegates will have to start from their homes before the Repub- 
lican Convention has actually adjourned. It is very important 
that the effect of the Republican nominations and the Repub- 
lican platform should go before the country, and that its influ- 
ence be felt before we attempt to take any action. We shall 
need all the assistance we can get during the coming year. We 
need all the advantages that may come to us from any mis- 



8 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

takes that may be made, and the circumstances attending the 
nominations and their platform should be known to the people 
all over the country before our Convention meets. If there are 
any weak spots in their armor we ought to have the advantage 
of preparing for a fair attack upon them and finding those 
weak spots. Two or three week's deliberation after they have 
adjourned will give us time and opportunity to prepare for 
such attacks. Instead of holding our Convention on the first 
Tuesday in July, I think it should be put as far in advance, 
say, as the second Tuesday, and would give us longer time. So 
far as the 7th is concerned, unless some one moves to change 
it to a later time, I shall vote for that date ; my judgment would 
be rather in favor of the 14th of July than the 7th, or any other 
earlier date. Then we can have time for deliberation after 
the Republicans have spread their plans before the country, 
nominated their candidates and announced their platform, and 
if there is any hope of making successful nominations it w^ill 
be greater v^ith these facts before the people than if we rush 
into the fight unprepared and act hastily directly after their 
nominations have been made. I do not at all share in the view 
suggested by my friend from Colorado that we should meet 
first. I think it would be suicidal to do so. The Republicans 
have charge now of the t^vo Houses of Congress, and have 
assumed control of the legislation of the country, and it is right 
and proper for them to make the first nominations, and when 
they have laid down their line of battle let us see how we can 
best meet it. Let us take a little time for deliberation so that 
our attack inay not be a hasty one. Perhaps time for delib- 
eration may help to repair some of the errors of the past and 
iwe may be better able to go forth united and make a successful 
attack upon them. 

The Chair : Does the Chair understand the gentleman 
from Florida to make a motion to that effect ? 

Mr. Pasco, of Florida : I will not press that unless my 
views are favorably regarded by the gentleman Avho has offered 
the motion for the 7th of July. I shall vote for that date if 
nothing better is offered ; but if the view I have presented is 
favored by the gentleman who made that motion, it can be 
offered as a substitute. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 9^ 

Mr. Wallace, of Washington : It seems very clear that 
there is a very strong sentiment throughout the country in 
favor of a late Convention. It also seems clear that if we 
hold our Convention at a later time, so that we can take 
advantage of any mistake which may be made by the Repub- 
lican Convention, we will have to hold a late Convention. 
* '^ * Now an election in Alabama, as I understand, 
occurs in August, and that election may be one of great 
import to our party. Following that there is an election 
in Maine and one in Vermont, and these States wish 
their speakers and they wish aid. So it seems to me, while it is 
desirable to hold a late Convention, to hold it later than from 
the first to the seventh of July, might embarrass the Cam- 
paign Committee very much. In vievi^ of the suggestion of 
this meeting of the Confederate Veterans — rather the Con- 
federate reunion — that is to be held in Richmond on the 80th 
of June, I am willing to accept the amendment, the one sug- 
gesting the 7th of July as the date. 

Mr. Sherley, of Kentucky : I hope you will ; because it 
was offered as a compromise between the 23rd of June and 
the 14th of July. 

Mr. Howry, of Mississippi : I withdraw my motion. 

The Chair : That leaves but two dates before the Com 
mittee, namely : July 7th, as now accepted by the gentleman 
from Washington, and June 9th, as offered by the gentleman 
from Colorado. 

Mr. Thomas, of Colorado : Mr. Chairman, my purpose 
in suggesting that date, was due entirely to the fact that I 
believe a long campaign and a vigorous one is absolutely essen- 
tial to success if we are going to succeed in this campaign. As 
a matter of fact, unless I am greatly misinformed, it is a sort of 
unwritten custom that the National party of the country in 
control of the administration shall hold the first convention. 
I think that that has been the custom for a very long time, and 
if we now depart from that custom it seems to me that we begin 
our campaign with a confession of w^eakness. We may be 
weak — we probably are weak — but it is not for this Committee, 
in my judgment, to do anything which virtually amounts to or 
is tantamount to a confession of weakness. In other words, if we- 



10 • Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

reverse the precedents of many years past, we go into the 
campaign handicapped with a sort of a tacit admission that we 
are the under dog in the fight. I am aware, as doubtless all the 
members of the Committee are, as they have been deluged 
with letters from different commercial organizations throughout 
the country, that those organizations are in favor of a short cam- 
paign. The reason why they claim to be in favor of a short 
campaign is that a long one will interfere with business, and 
business with them is the paramount object and purpose of civil 
government. Of course this is a subject to which we ought 
to give attention, but the people, as far as my limited observa- 
tion goes, are in favor of a long campaign. It may be that 
the Republican party, when it meets in St. Louis, will make 
some mistakes. It may be that we can take advantage of 
them, but the history of the Democratic party for the last 
twenty-five years shows that mistakes of the Republican 
party made by virtue of its platform and the holding of early 
conventions, have not redounded very much to the benefit of 
the Democratic party. When w^e have succeeded, ^ve have 
succeeded on positive platforms based on positive principles. 
My ov^n judgment is that this next campaign, whether we 
wish it or not, is bound to turn upon the financial questions 
which are at present agitating the country, and the Demo- 
cratic party is bound to take a positive stand upon them 
whether it waits until after the other Convention is held or 
holds its own first. I believe that if we can decide upon our 
platform and nominate our candidates without reference to 
the action of the Republican party, ^ve will stand a much 
better chance of v/inning. In consequence, I am in favor of 
an early campaign. Personally I would be in favor of June 2, 
rather than June 9. If we can nominate our candidates and 
get our campaign started, and get everything ready and' 
equipped as rapidly as possible, then we can go into the fight, 
to win or lose, as the case may be, with some chance of suc- 
cess. I believe an early campaign — as early a Convention as 
possible — is absolutely essential to success if we can succeed at 
all. I now renew my motion for the 9th of June. There is 
no use disguising the fact that there are very serious differ- 
ences in the ranks of the Democracy. It must be recollected 
ithat we must do something to get together, and the more time 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 11 

we have in which to get together, the better it is going to be 
for us. I think we better have an early Convention. What- 
ever the result of that Convention, there is going to be dis- 
satisfaction, and I think we will be needing all the time 
we can get for the purpose of harmonizing our differences and 
presenting an united front to the common enemy. 

The Chair : The motion of Mr. Thomashas been renewed. 

Mr. Morgan, of Alabama : I think it my duty as one of 
the delegates from Alabama to make a statement which I 
think ought to have some effect upon the Committee. Alabama 
stands ai the head of the column alphabetically. She also may 
take a place at the head for a persistent and unvarying course 
always in the election of Democratic electors. Her record is par- 
ticularly clear on the subject and has been maintained for many 
years. The result of the next election, held the first week in 
August for Governor and members of the legislature, ^who w^ill 
elect a senator, will necessarily have a very profound effect 
upon the feelings and the situation of Democrats throughout 
the State and throughout the country. I do not know whether 
the election in Maine comes earlier than ours or not. 

The Chair : That will be held in September. 

Mr. Morgan : Alabama's election probably is the first 
one. The state of Alabama is in a very unsettled condition 
politically and it is in serious danger of being thrown into the 
category of the doubtful States. In other words, the Demo- 
cratic party of the United States is in serious danger of losing 
the electoral vote in Alabama through its unfortunate troubles, 
and I hope that this Committee w^ill give to us an opportunity 
to bring the Democrats of Alabama from their retreats, and 
assemble them together on the old lines of the party, which I 
think will not be a difficult task, if we show them that we are in 
harmony w^ith and courteous to them. I hope this committee 
will give us an opportunity to do that. Now a late Convention 
will not produce that effect. We must have a chance, if possi- 
ible, of following the lead of the men who are to be selected as 
the candidates for President and Vice-president. They are to 
become the rallying point of the Democracy of that State. If 
we have to go into a late campaign which will make it difficult 
to prevent these various differences from crystallizing into 



12 ' Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

antagonistic forces, a campaign without national leadership and 
without our being able to bring our Democrats in harmony with 
the Democracy of the United States, we are going to have a hard 
fight and to need every assistance in our efforts to save that State. 
It has been charged against Alabama upon the floor of the 
Senate and sent to all the newspapers in the North that the 
results of our last elections, including the Presidential election, 
w^ere obtained through manipulations of the ballot box. Such 
accusations have been made freely in the Senate of the United 
States upon Populist authority, but the Senators from that 
State have not as yet felt called upon to respond to the charge. 
The truth is that we have a clear Democratic majority of good, 
sound, honest Democrats in Alabama of not less than 60,000. 
That is the truth, and it is also true that while there may have 
been some irregularities — I believe there were in some coun- 
ties — yet in all these elections to w^hich I have referred, includ- 
ing that of the President, we have had a decisive and strong 
majority of Democrats in that State, so that we know and feel 
that we stand upon no uncertain ground at all in respect to our 
ability to carry the State except that uncertainty which has 
been produced by the trouble among the people over the sub- 
ject of the currency. The Populists have made some inroads 
upon us and twice have claimed that they have elected their 
Governor. The claim was not answered nor was it believed 
in or insisted upon with seriousness. At the same time they 
have given us a great amount of annoyance. The methods of 
our party have been denounced in the management of the 
ballot box. The same thing, I think, has occurred in North 
Carolina. The Senators recently elected from that State 
arose in their seats recently and said that the loss of the State 
of North Carolina to the Democracy was because of the fusion 
between the Populists and the Republicans. That is what 
they say. Of course I do not believe it. That surely is not the 
fact, but that is the reason why they say they lost the State. 
Now there is a very large body of very sincere, good, honest 
Democrats in Alabama who have been either driven off or 
their power neutralized by these accusations. Whether true 
or untrue it makes no difference. When you get the popular 
mind in a condition amounting to conviction, you have got to 
remove it by some pretty earnest means ; otherwise you will 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 13 

be snowed under. You have got to check it in time. It is 
very probable, Mr. Chairman, that, if these obstinate gentle- 
men in Alabama, who are now openly flirting with the 
Republicans, can produce a demonstration in that State amount- 
ing really to the opening of the campaign before our Conven- 
tion meets, we shall be in very serious difficulties. Then you 
can very well understand what the effect upon the Democrats 
of the United States would be with an adverse vote to the Dem- 
ocratic party in Alabama. While latterly I have not had much 
to do with the active politics of the Democratic party there, 
yet I have been identified with the party for over fifty years 
without a break, and never have I struck a blow for myself, 
I have been fighting for the Democratic party because I believe 
in its principles and I rejoice in the glory of its traditions. I 
believe in the wonderful results that it has accomplished for 
the people of the United States. Those are the reasons why I 
am a Democrat. I glory in the party and no man in the world 
can drive me out of it, not even if the coming Convention 
should establish a platform entirely inconsistent or unw^ise. 
While I might kick, I w^ould stay with my party because it is 
the best party in the world. (Applause.) The members of the 
Democratic party really do their own thinking and fight their 
own battles, and that is the real strength of the Democratic 
party. This country has never yet found and never will find 
any real national trouble for which, when it throws itself upon 
the bosom of the Democratic party, that party will not give 
absolute and speedy relief. 

After the Civil war was over, what did we do? We found 
ourselves ready to march back again into the Union, because 
thedoctrineof States' rights controlled influential public opinion 
in the United States. But people of our sort need no cowardly 
leader. He can not possibly have their votes and be untrue 
to the principles of the party. Above all, he must have courage ; 
a coward can not lead the Democratic party to victory. Take 
a mediocre man, a man of ordinary reputation and abilities, and 
let him have a reputation for courage, consistent honor, and a 
reputation for faithful, conscientious adherence to the Demo- 
cratic creed and principles, and the people will support him 
with joy. 

So I think, Mr. Chairman, when the Committee under- 



14 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

takes to outline this campaign by the action we are about to 
take here now, we ought in our conduct to rely upon ourselves 
as Democrats, and that action, it seems to me, ought to be at- 
tended with firmness and courage. There are as many Demo- 
crats in the United States as voted for Mr. Cleveland four 
years ago. This year by reason of all the difficulties we have 
had, they have not voted, they have not all gone into the Popu- 
list party ; they have not surrendered to the Republicans. They 
have taken to the woods. Now, the Populist party hasnot gone 
over to the Republicans. The Republican party is not any 
stronger in the United States today ; it is not as strong as when 
it elected Mr. Harrison or when it voted for him the last time 
and got defeated. The Democratic party is as strong as it was 
then, excepting a few outlying men who are anxious to come 
home and who see the failure of their course. 

I understand it to be a fact that the Democratic party 
heretofore has been accustomed to taking the lead in the time 
of holding a convention. They have said to the people of 
the United States, *'Here is our creed ; here are our men," 
for the purpose of making a gallant, aggressive, intense, 
thorough and honest campaign. We are not afraid to address 
the people of the United States and avow what we believe to 
be our duty. We are not going to hold off merely for the 
purpose of taking such advantages as might fall to us by 
some inconsiderate action on the part of the opposition. We 
do not expect to win a campaign by playing their tricks at the 
card table. We want to win by our own strength. We want 
a fair fight. The people will sustain you if you step to the 
front and furnish them with men and measures that they can 
unite upon, and they will go a great way to get both the men 
and the measures with which they can come to the front in 
advance of the Republicans. (Applause.) Then the people 
w^ill understand that they have got a party with convictions 
^vhich does not depend upon w^hcther anybody else believes in 
them or not, but upon what the party believes and feels to be 
for the best interests of the country. 

Therefore, Mr. Chairman, I am in 'favor of an early Con- 
vention. More than that, as I understand it, and I think I do 
understand it, the Southern people are in a more serious state 
of mind than I have ever known them. I never had anything 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 15. 

like the requests made upon me for information connected with 
the financial question that I have had within the last two 
years . The newspaper press of the country has been immensely 
influential in distributing information and the people are taking 
a great deal more interest than they ever did formerly in the 
study of this question. I can honestly say that both on account 
of the state of the Democracy in the South and the duty which 
I think V7e owe to Democrats everywhere, the party should 
hold its Convention at an early date and before the Republican 
Convention is held. 

Mr. Thurman, of New Mexico. Mr. Chairman : We 
might as well all recognize the fact that the Democratic party 
of the United States is in a rather disorganized condition. 

The last two general elections have thrown us into a state 
of semi-collapse. I feel, however, that it is within the power 
of this Committee to assist us in retrieving our fortunes. I 
feel that if this Committee w^ill give us an early Conven- 
tion, and in a Western city, you will have an enthusiastic one 
which will- give Democrats courage and hope of success. On 
the other hand if the time be fixed at a late date, and the place 
selected be in the East, the impression that is now abroad,, 
especially throughout the West and South, will only be inten- 
sified, namely : that the National Democratic organization does 
not intend giving the Democrats of the West and South, who' 
differ from their brethren and their gospel in the East, a fair,, 
square opportunity to present their cause before a Democratic; 
National Convention. 

You may think this is an over statement, but it is absolutely 
true, gentlemen, that there is an impression in the West, that 
if this Convention is put off until a late date, it vv^ill be done 
for the purpose of controlling it, by manipulation, against Dem- 
ocrats who are in favor of the free coinage of both gold and 
silver. 

You might as well look this matter straight in the face 
That is the impression, and if it be decided to put off the date 
until away into July, tht rank and file of the Democratic party 
in those states to which I have referred, and w^ho have always 
been true to the principles of the Democratic party, will at 
once lose all heart and hope. They will feel just as they did 



16 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

iconcerning the State Conventions which were held in the 
West during the last year. They will fear that the power of the 
Administration will be so used that it will control the dele- 
gates to that Convention. We fear this, because having felt 
the power of official patronage in thus controlling delegates to 
Conventions, we know what it means, and I assure you we do 
not want another practical example of such a pure ( ?) exalted (?) 
and clear conception (?) of civil service reform as was dis- 
played upon those occasions. And what is more, I want to 
say, as much as you may dislike to hear it, that the Democrats 
who believe in the free coinage of both gold and silver will 
not stand any more of such work. If this is done you will 
simply drive them away from the Democratic party. If they 
■do not go into the Populist party, you will, as Senator Morgan 
has said, drive them into the bushes, and when there you can 
not get them out ; and if you can not get them out it is just 
as utterly impossible for the Democratic party to elect the next 
President of the United States as it is for any man here to jump 
over Washington's Monument. 

We have anything other than a sure thingupon this election. 
New York, Connecticut andNew^ Jersey with the South, even 
should we carry them, will no longer elect a Democratic Pres- 
ident. We will have to have several of the Western States in 
addition ; and if by your action you do not make those people 
to whom I have referred believe that you are giving them an 
equal chance to control the delegates to the National Conven- 
tion, you can not get a single, solitary one of those States. Any 
action on your part other than this will be sure to bring about 
the election of a Republican President, either by securing to 
that party a majority of the electoral votes, or by the election 
being thrown into the House of Representatives, and that body 
^vould of course elect a Republican President. Therefore, 
gentlemen of the Committee, I beg of you in the name of the 
Democrats of the West and South, who honestly believe in the 
free coinage of both gold and silver, who believe that the 
Constitution of the United States guarantees that they shall be 
both coined into money; who believejust as sincerely and hon- 
estly in their position as you do in yours, not. only to listen but 
to heed. If you do not, we will all go down together. 

Firmly believing this, Mr. Chairman, I hope that instead of 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 17 

having a late Convention, that this committee will select the 
date of holding the same not later than the first day of June. 
And I move to amend by striking out the date we are now 
considering and to substitute therefor the first day of June — I 
learn the second day will be on Tuesday. That would be a 
better day of the week; therefore, I name the second day of 
June instead of the first. 

Mr. Thomas : Mr. Chairman, with the consent of my 
second, I will accept the suggestion of the gentleman repre- 
senting New Mexico, making the date the second day of 
June instead of the 9th. 

The Chair : The motion to fix June 9th has been w^ith- 
drawn. As the Chair recalls it, the only dates now before the 
Committee are June 2d and July 7th. 

Mr. Cable, of Illinois : In view of the fact that June 80th 
has been w^ithdraw^n, I would like to offer July 14th. 

The Chair : July 14th has been named. 

Mr. Gorman, of Maryland : Mr. Chairman, I have listened 
attentively to the remarks of Mr. Thurman who represents 
New Mexico and it seems to me they show the importance of 
great deliberation on our part, and the necessity for fixing the 
time for holding the Convention at as late a period as possible 
with the view of organizing a successful campaign in order 
that w^e may, if possible, by counseling each other bring about 
greater harmony than seems to exist today. If the party were 
united, it would make but little difference when the Conven- 
tion should be held. But it seems to me that we must take 
into account the fact, as stated by the different members of 
this committee, that there are serious differences of opinion 
upon questions of importance. 

We are in a minority in Congress in part because of these 
divisions, but Mr. Chairman we all w^ish the Democratic party 
to come back into power. We will get back w^hen we make 
up our minds to harmonize these little differences upon mere 
questions of detail. There must be great liberty of action per- 
mitted to members of the party. So long as we agree upon 
the cardinal principles, we can tolerate minor differences. I 
have but little respect for the judgment or action of any Dem- 



18 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

ocrat who would leave his party or refuse to abide by his parly's 
nominee because of some difference upon some detail of a 
financial policy. I hope that when our Convention shall have 
assembled we may all harmonize upon a platform and agree 
upon a candidate that every Democrat in the Union can vote 
for. 

The Convention should be held at such time as will give 
ample opportunity after the nomination to prepare for the 
contest. I do not believe that you could make nominations in 
the latter part of July or the first of August and then make 
the campaign an effective one, and I believe it would be folly 
to fix the date of the Convention prior to the time agreed upon 
for the Republican Convention at St. Louis. But if we shall 
meet early in July we can take advantage of whatever mis- 
takes the Republicans may make. Let us have ample time to 
prepare for this fight and not go into battle until we are ready 
There can be no disadvantage in giving Democrats an oppor- 
tunity to deliberate together. 

Mr. Chairman, while I will not be a delegate to the Con- 
vention, at the same time I have great interest that the gath- 
ering will be a harmonious one. I believe^'that the Democratic 
creed is broad enough and liberal enough to permit every Dem- 
ocrat, East, West, North and South, to come into the fold and 
take an active part in the support of whoever we may nominate. 

While the outlook today is against us, I think that if we 
shall meet each other in a spirit of fairness and frankness the 
clouds will pass away before October next. With a sound 
platform, broad and liberal, and with good nominations and a 
united party we can make such a contest as ought to insure 
success. 

Mr. Cable, of Illinois : Mr. Chairman, I wish to with 
draw the amendment I offered of the 14th of July. 

The Chair : The date of July 14th is withdrawn. 

Mr. Sm alley, of Vermont : I would like to make a sug- 
gestion that can only be taken up by unanimous consent, and 
that is, that the Secretary be directed to call the roll of States 
and let each State name the time when it w^ould prefer the 
Convention to be held. 

The Chair : The question has practically resolved itself 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 19^ 

into one of two dates, June 2 and July 7: The Secretary 
will proceed to call the roll and, as the Chair understands it,, 
the date receiving the majority vote, will be regarded as the 
date fixed for holding the Convention. 

Mr. Ransom, of North Carolina : Would not the proper 
way of putting the question be, first, to have the vote on July?? 
That will leave an opportunity for further discussion as to the 
other date. 

The Chair : The suggestion is accepted by the Chair ;; 
and the vote will be taken on the question whether July 7 
shall be the date selected. 

The Secretary called the roll of the States and Territories^ 
and the vote resulted as follow^s : 

Yeas — Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Ken- 
tucky^ Louisiana^ Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska,, 
Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Penn- 
sylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Vir- 
ginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alaska, District of Colum- 
bia, Oklahoma.— Total, 32. 

Nays — Alabama, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, 
Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Montana^ North Carolina, North Dakota, 
South Carolina, Texas, Wyoming, Arizona, New IMexico, Indian Terri- 
tory.— Total, 18. 

Recapitulation — Yeas, 32; Nays, 18. Necessary to a choice, 26. 

Note. — Minnesota, not being represented by member or proxy, did 
not vote. 

The Chair : The Secretary will please announce the vote 
as recorded. 

The Secretary: The vote is: Yeas, 82; nays, 18. 

The Chair : The Chair understands it that July 7, 1896, 
is the date fixed by this Committee for holding the next 
Democratic National Convention. 

Mr. Niblack, of Oklahoma: Mr. Chairman, I beg leave 
to present the following resolution, which I hope will be 
adopted by this Committee : 

Whereas, By resolution duly adopted by the Democratic National 
Convention of 1892, the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona were 
allowed six delegates each on the floor of said Convention; and. 

Whereas, Oklahoma and Indian Territories have each an esti- 
mated population of 300,000, or a voting strength of 50,000 each; and, 



20 Meeting, January 16, 1896, 

Whereas, It is desirable to avoid a discrimination that would seem 
un-Democratic in the representation allowed these Territories; there- 
fore be it 

Resolved, That it is recommended that in the next Democratic Na- 
tional Convention, the Democrats of Oklahoma and Indian Territories 
shall be entitled to like representation with Arizona and New Mexico, of 
six delegates each. 

The Chair : What is the pleasure of the Committee with 
regard to the resolution just read? 

Mr. Norris, of the District of Columbia: I move that 
they include the District of Columbia, also. 
(This motion was duly seconded.) 

The Chair : The gentleman from the District of Colum- 
bia moves to amend by adding the District of Columbia and 
the motion as made has been duly seconded. 

Senator Morgan, of Alabama : That resolution, as I 
understand it, is addressed as a petition to the next Conven- 
tion, is it not ^ 

The Chair : The Chair so understands it. 

Senator Morgan, of Alabama : This Committee would 
have no jurisdiction to change the representation ? 

The Chair : That is the view the Chair would take of it. 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland : The Convention itself 
fixes the representation, and that has been fixed. 

Senator Morgan, of Alabama : Did the last Conven- 
tion fix the representation for the next one ? 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland: Yes, sir; that has 
been the rule from the beginning. Each Convention itself 
fixes the representation. It has been done and each State 
should have double the number of 

Senator Morgan, of Alabama: If that is so, then the 
resolution is out of order, because if the last Convention fixed 
the basis of representation, we cannot alter it. 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland : I think we cannot ; 
with all due deference to the proposer of the resolution, I do 
not think this is the time for this resolution. At the last Con- 
vention, when we met at Chicago, the question regarding 
New Mexico and Arizona came up. They wanted increased 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 21 

representation. Bills having been passed by the lower House 
of Congress to admit New Mexico and Arizona, only two 
days before the Senate passed upon the bill to bring them as 
states into the Union, they claimed that it was only fair, that 
as they were practically already states in the Union, they 
ought to have representation according to the population, and 
the convention itself acted upon that matter in respect to New 
Mexico and Arizona, allowing New Mexico and Arizona six 
votes each, and the Convention itself said it. It is a matter 
with which the Committee has nothing to do. It is true that 
just before the action of the Convention, the matter was 
brought up in the Committee, and in the hurry the resolution 
w^as passed. This Committee has nothing whatever to do 
w^ith it and could not take any action that would be binding 
at all. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio: Let me call the attention of 
the members of the Committee to something which occurred 
in a meeting corresponding to this one of the National Com- 
mittee preceding the Convention of 1892. The meeting was 
held here, in this room, and the following resolution was 
offered : (Resolution read.) 

When the Committee on Credentials of the National Com- 
mittee met, after giving their decision of the contested seats, 
they proceeded, " In the District of Columbia Messrs. James 
L. Norris and Henry E. Davis are given seats and votes upon 
this floor. In the Territories of New Mexico and Arizona, it 
was recommended by the National Committee that each be 
given six seats upon the floor of this Convention." 

Mr. Thomas, of Colorado : The recommendation was made 
at Chicago. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio : Whether it was made there or 
not the Committee recommended that each be given six dele- 
gates on the floor of the Convention. That w^as the Conven- 
tion of 1892. After their resolution had been adopted I 
offered the following resolution to the National Convention : 

(Resolution read.) 

I want to amend the motion made, so that there will be no 
distinction in any recommendation to the Convention, but that 
these territories will be treated all alike. 



22 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

Mr. Prather, of Missouri : It is an indisputable fact 
that every Convention has the right to determine the election 
and qualifications of its members, and that the next Convention 
will pass upon the delegates from Oklahoma and the District 
of Columbia, but I believe it to be proper in every way that v^^e 
at least recommend that these two territories be accorded the 
same representation that has already been given to the other 
territories. I see no objection in recommending what has 
already been given ; they should all be placed upon the same 
footing. 

The Chair : It will go before the Convention as the re- 
commendation of this Committee. 

Mr. Owen, of Indian Territory: I would like to call the 
attention of the Committee to the phraseology of the resolution 
itself. It distinctly states that it is a recommendation. It is 
not proposed that this Committee shall pass finally upon the 
apportionment for Indian Territory and Oklahoma, but only 
the Convention shall make them equal with the territories 
already cited. Certainly the limitation of this body cannot be 
so great that the right to recommendation shall be denied 
them. That is all the Democrats of Indian Territory and 
Oklahoma ask for, and I w^ould like to make this further sug- 
gestion. I am informed from responsible sources that the 
action already taken by the Republican Committee is to allow 
that character of representation to the territories, six each, 
and I hope that the Indian Territory and Oklahoma Democ- 
racy w^ill not be confronted with a difference in treatment, not 
only contrasting them with the territories cited but also the 
contrast would be drawn between the Democratic organiza- 
tion and the Republican. 

Mr. Thomas, of Colorado : Mr. Chairman, I want to say 
what the delegate from Indian Territory has already said. I 
think we have a right to recommend whatever we please. 
When we consider that the District of Columbia, Indian Ter- 
ritory and Oklahoma have a population far in excess of at least 
two States in the Union, and when we further consider the 
fact that they have no voice in public affairs, or in the choice 
of their rulers, it is no more than right and just that in the 
selection of candidates that they have at least as much repre- 
sentation as the gentleman suggests. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 23 

The Chair : The question is first on the amendment 
offered by the gentleman from the District of Columbia. 

Mr. Norris, of the District of Columbia : I understood 
that to be accepted. 

The Chair: The Chair did not so understand it. Did the 
gentleman from Oklahoma accept the amendment offered by 
the last gentleman, from the District of Columbia ? 

Mr. Niblack, of Oklahoma : Yes sir; all amendments are 
accepted. 

The Chair: The vote then will be on the resolution as 
amended so as to include all the territories. Shall the roll be 
called ? 

Several members of the Committee : A viva voce vote. 
(Which motion to adopt the resolution as amended was put 
and carried.) 

Mr. Howell, of Georgia : So as to expedite matters this 
afternoon as much as possible, I move that the cities which are 
to be heard from, that are applicants for the location of the 
Convention, be requested this afternoon to submit in writing a 
definite statement of their proposals. I do not wish to pre- 
clude by that the verbal statement of the representatives of 
these cities, but I am informed by persons well acquainted 
with matters of this kind, that there has been in times past 
considerable trouble and a good deal of difference between the 
accommodations actually furnished by the cities where the 
Convention met and the promises w^hich were made to those 
Conventions. In order that there maybe no misunderstanding 
about the matter, and so that the Secretary may notify the 
representatives of these cities during recess, I move that the 
representatives of these cities be requested to submit with their 
verbal addresses a definite statement of the proposals of each 
one, in writing, to be filed with the Secretary. 

(This motion was duly seconded and carried.) 

Mr. Gorman, of Maryland : I move that the Chair appoint 
a committee of seven (I think that is the usual number), of 
which the chairman of this Committee shall be chairman, to 
have exclusive control of the management of the next Con- 
vention, and to issue the usual call for that Convention. 



24 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

Mr. Thomas, of Colorado: I would suggest as an amend- 
ment that the committee of seven include not only the Chair- 
man, but the Secretary as well. 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland : I accept the amendment. 

(Which motion was duly seconded and carried.) 

Mr. Sherley, of Kentucky : It occurs to me that if this 
matter is left to the sub-committee, this Committee ought to 
inform the cities before they make their proposition Avhat will 
be expected. I allude to one particular thing, and that is the 
hall in which the Convention is to be held. It ought to be 
understood distinctly that this committee suggested by Mr. 
Gorman shall have exclusive control over that hall, and the 
city which secures this Convention must consult with this sub- 
committee not only as to the hall, but as to the location of your 
telegraph department, and every detail connected with the 
proper management and conduct of the Convention. These 
gentlemen must understand in advance that this Committee 
must have exclusive control over all these matters. 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland : I agree to that also. 

The Chair : The question is on the motion offered by the 
gentleman from Maryland. 

(The motion w^as duly seconded, put and carried.) 

Mr. Smalley, of Vermont : Would not the appointment 
of the committee be in order ? 

The Chair : The Chair w^ill appoint hereafter, at a con- 
venient time, the meijibers of the sub-committee. 

Mr. Hov^ell, of Georgia : Hadn't we better fix the time 
we are going to allow each city to present its case ? I would 
suggest that when we adjourn, we adjourn to meet at 8 p. m., 
and that each city be limited to thirty minutes in which to 
present its claim. 

The Chair : Does the gentleman offer that as a motion — 
that when we adjourn we adjourn to meet at 8 o'clock this after- 
noon ; and that we will invite the cities to present their respect- 
ive claims at that time, and that each city is to be limited to 
thirty minutes ^ 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 25 

Mr. Howell, of Georgia : Yes sir. 

The Chair : The motion practically is, that we take a 
recess until three o'clock this afternoon; and that the cities, in 
presenting their respective claims, shall be limited to thirty 
minutes each. 

(This motion was duly seconded, put to a vote and carried.) 

Mr. Cable, of Illinois : I move that there be roll call this 
afternoon of the States to disclose what States have cities desir- 
ing the Convention ; and that the delegates of the various 
cities be heard in the alphabetical order. That is the rule 
adopted last year, and I believe each city is to be allowed one 
half hour to present its claim. 

The Chair : The motion of the gentleman from Illinois 
is that at the afternoon session the roll of States shall be called, 
in order to ascertain what States have cities desiring the Con- 
vention ; and that when it has been ascertained definitely what 
cities in the various States desire it, then that those cities be 
called alphabetically, and that a half hour each be accorded to 
such cities as want the Convention. 

Mr. Pasco, of Florida : I ask in reference to the sugges- 
tion made by the gentleman from Georgia, that written prop- 
ositions be submitted. Is that to be done before or after these 
addresses are made ? It seems to me that it would be appro- 
priate that these propositions be the basis of the speeches 
made. I should think we ought to base the right of any city 
to be heard before this Committee by its presentation of its 
written promises first. 

The Chair : There is a motion befoie the Committee. In 
order that there may be no doubt about it, the Chair will repeat 
the motion offered by the gentleman from Illinois, namely : 
that the roll of States be called to ascertain what States have 
cities desiring the Convention, and that the cities be then 
called alphabetically, giving one-half hour to each city for the 
presentation of its claims. 

(Which motion, duly seconded, was put and carried.) 

Motion to adjourn until 3 p. m. duly seconded, was put and- 
carried. 

(Recess until 3 o'clock p. m.) 



:26 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

AFTERNOON SESSION, 8 P. M. 

OPEN SESSION. 

The Chair : The meeting will be in order, please. The 
Sergeant-at-Arms will see that the doors are closed so that we 
may have quiet. 

Ladies and Gentlemen : In pursuance of the order of busi- 
ness established by this Committee, the roll of States will be 
called for the purpose of definitely ascertaining the States that 
desire the Convention, to beheld within their borders. After 
the call of the roll, and after it has been definitely and finally 
ascertained what cities desire the Convention, the cities them- 
selves will be called in alphabetical order, and each city will be 
given one-half hour in which to present reasons why the Con- 
vention should be held in that city. After that, and after the 
gentlemen have been heard in support of their claims of their 
respective cities, the Committee will go into executive session, 
in order to determine in which city the Convention shall be 
held. The suggestion of the Chair is that when that stage shall 
have been reached that the speaking is to begin, the Chairman 
of the delegation representing each city shall indicate the num- 
ber of gentlemen who are to speak, and the order in which 
they are to speak, always bearing in mind that each city is 
limited to thirty minutes. 

The Secretary will kindly call the roll of States, and the 
member of each State having a city desiring the Convention, 
will indicate to the Secretary the name of the city. 

The Secretary called the roll of States to Illinois. 

The Secretary then called the State of Illinois. 

Mr. Cable, of Illinois : Mr. Chairman, the State of 
Illinois will offer to the Committee the City of Chicago, and 
desires that that place be named for the holding of the Con- 
vention. 

The Chair : The City of Chicago is named by Illinois. 

(The Secretary continued the call of the roll of States to 
Missouri.) 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 



Zi 



The Secretary then called the State of Missouri. 

Col. Prather, of Missouri : Missouri names St. Louis. 

The Chair : St. Louis is named by Missouri. 

(The Secretary continued the call of the roll of States to 
New York.) 

The Secretary called the State of New York. 

Gov. Sheehan, of New York : New York names the City 
of New York. 

The Chair : Gov. Sheehan of New York names the city 
of New York. 

(The Secretary continued the call of the roll of States to 
Ohio.) 

The Secretary called the State of Ohio. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio : Mr. Chairman, the State of 
Ohio names the City of Cincinnati. 

The Chair : The City of Cincinnati is named by the State 
of Ohio. 

(The Secretary concluded the call of the roll of the States.) 

The Chair : Under the order of the Committee, the cities 

named will be heard in alphabetical order, namely, Chicago, 

Cincinnati, Ne^v York and St. Louis. 

The Chair will be glad to hear from the gentleman from 
Illinois, as to the order of speaking by the representatives of 
Chicago. 

Mr. Cable, of Illinois : The claims of Chicago will be pre- 
sented by one speaker. Judge Goodrich. 

The Chair : The ladies and gentlemen and the Committee 
will be glad to hear from Judge Goodrich. 



ADDRESS OF JUDGE ADAMS A. GOODRICH 

On Behalf of the City of Chicago. 

M7\ Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Democratic National Com- 
mittee: I am delegated by the citizens of Chicago, without respect to 
party, to extend to the Democratic National Committee and through it to 
the National Democratic party a cordial and hearty invitation to hold the 
next National Democratic Convention within the borders of that city. It 



28 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

will not take, gentlemen of the Committee, a half hour for me to state the 
reasons why you should hold that convention in Chicago. Most of you 
have heard the reasons given before, and the reasons exist to-day, as they 
have for years, only to a greater extent. We invite you, gentlemen of the 
Committee, upon the terms and conditions and with all the guarantees 
required by the Democratic National Committee. It is needless for me 
to say that Chicago, as she has always done, will fulfill every guaranty 
that she makes. With none but the kindest feelings for every other city 
entered in this contest, with a feeling only of generous rivalry, yet with a 
feeling of modesty which always becomes Chicago (laughter) we claim to 
be the best convention city m the United States. We claim that we have 
better facilities than any other city for entertaining the vast crowds that 
will assemble at that time. I mean not only the delegates and the alter- 
nates who will compose that convention, but the vast crowd of Demo- 
crats who will come there for the purpose of seeing that the work of the 
convention is well done. The transportation facilities of Chicago, it is 
needless for me to say, are unsurpassed. It is the great inland city of this 
continent. All railroads run to Chicago. Since the last Democratic con- 
vention was held in Chicago that city has entertained the world. At the 
great World's Fair we entertained more people than were ever entertained 
in a similar length of time in any other city. I leave it to you to say 
whether or not we did it well. This convention is invited to Chicago, as 
I said, without any feeling of partisanship, but on behalf of all the people. 
The Democracy of Chicago, the Democracy of Illinois, do not need the 
stimulus of this convention to do their duty. Whether it be held in Chi- 
cago or elsewhere the Democracy of that great State will be found in the 
campaign of 1896 doing its duty as it always has done. (Applause.) 

Gentlemen, if you want to win, come to Chicago. You have never 
elected and seated a Democratic President who was not nominated in that 
city since 1856. (Applause.) Come this year to Chica^ and I be- 
lieve the people of this country will again ratify your action and elect a 
Democratic President in November next. We have agreed on the part 
of the hotel-keepers in that city that the rates shall be the usual ordinary 
rates. We will furnish you a hall of such size as the sub-committee of 
the Democratic National Committee may see fit to call upon us to pro- 
vide. We will give you every facility of every kind. We will receive 
you with a generous hospitality. On behalf of that peerless city resting 
upon the shores of a great inland sea, I heartily and cordially invite you 
to come to Chicago. (Applause.) 

The Chair : Cincinnati will now have an opportunity to 
show cause why the Convention should be held there. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio : The claims of the city of Cin- 
cinnati will be presented by Mr. M. E. Ingalls and Judge John 
F. Follett. Mr. Ingalls, I now introduce. 

The Cpiair : Ladies and gentlemen and members of the 
committee, Mr. M. E. Ingalls of Ohio. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 29 

ADDRESS OF MR. M. E. INGALLS, OF CINCINNATI. 

Gentlemen of the Democratic National Committee: I have faced a good 
many Democratic audiences, but this is the first time I ever appeared 
before the National Committee. We have among the members of our dele- 
gation men celebrated for their learning, for their eloquence and for their 
Democracy, but, after due consideration they thought as this was more a 
business question than anything else that it should be presented by a busi- 
ness man and not by an orator or a statesman. This is my apology for com- 
ing before you. If I fail in my duty to-day it will be, perhaps, because I am 
not familiar with your ways, audit maybe due to the intense interest which 
I have for my own city of Cincinnati and my love for Democracy. I hope to 
have the merit of the gentleman who just preceded me of being brief. I will 
try to present the claims of our city with malice toward none and charity for 
all. As I understand it, there are two questions involved in this proceeding: 
one is a business question, whether the city of Cincinnati shall be chosen 
as the city in which to hold the Democratic National Convention, and the 
other is a political question, whether or not it is advisable for the Demo- 
crats to hold their convention in that city. I will endeavor to confine 
myself to both questions so as to present the matter before you in a man- 
ner that they may be considered and fairly decided by you. 

Cincinnati has had no National Convention since 1880. In the 
meantime a new city has grown up on the banks of the Ohio and her 
people, without regard to political creed, age, sex or condition, decided 
they would invite the Democratic National Committee to hold the Na- 
tional Convention there. They wanted to have the Republican Conven- 
tion there, too, but the price was a little too high. (Laughter.) Further- 
more, we thought we would be generous to St. Louis. 

We have, in the first place, the best hall in the world for a political 
convention. We have not a hall twice as large as the prairies around 
Chicago or the levees around St. Louis, but it is a hall that will hold ten 
thousand Democrats, and that is as many as ever will go to any conven- 
tion. It will seat comfortably — every man having as good a seat as each 
of you hereto-day — a trifle over 6,000, 4,354 in the auditorium and over 
1,500 on the stage. We are spending now $100,000 to improve its acoustic 
properties, and there is not one nook or corner in the hall where any 
speaker with a reasonable voice can not be heard. It has large aisles, 
large areas where standing room can be used to enlarge its seating capac- 
ity, and that is where we can accommodate the other four thousand people, 
if you wish. But we will take care of 6,000 people and make them as 
comfortable as you are in this room. This hall is lighted by electricity. 
It has reception rooms and committee rooms; connected with it are two 
other buildings under the same roof. We will arrange for a restaurant to be 
located adjoining your committee rooms, where you can get your re- 
freshments without going outside of the building, and if it is like any for- 
mer Democratic Convention we will take care of some of you after the 
convention is over. (Laughter.) We have as good railroad facilities as 
there are in the world. We have leading to the South the great trunk 



80 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

lines that traverse every part of that country. We have going to the 
east and the west the largest trunk lines of America, and there is no city 
on earth that can be reached by so many Democrats, so comfortably, 
so easily and in such a short space of time, as the city of Cincinnati. 
People will tell you how hot a city Cincinnati is in summer and the repre- 
sentatives of New York will doubtless talk to you about the sea breezes. 
Ohio is a hot country in the summer time. I do not know of any place 
in July, when you propose to hold this convention, that is not liable to be 
hot; but I will guarantee, if you have ever struck a hot day in Chicago or 
New York, that you will never find anything like it in Cincinnati. We do 
not keep that kind of weather. 

We have the transportation facilities and the facilities to accommo- 
date you all. Speaking of the facilities for accommodation I am remind- 
ed of the story of a man in Cincinnati who keeps a hotel. When asked 
how many people he could accommodate, he said: "Well, if they come 
from New York about one hundred ; if they come from Kentucky, if the bar 
is large enough, I can take care of a thousand." If, gentlemen, you are 
real good Democrats, when night comes you wont care much about any bed. 
(Laughter.) You would just waste the hours in sleep; you would rather 
wait until you get home. I have had a hotel man from Cincinnati figure 
up for me the hotel capacity of our city. In the first place, I want to 
say to those of you who were there in 1880 that since then the Grand 
Hotel, the Burnett and the Gibson have all been enlarged. Since then 
the new hotels erected inside the city limits make the number fifteen. 
Outside of the city on the hills we have a large and beautiful hotel. The 
St. Nicholas has trebled its size. The capacity of the hotels of Cincin- 
nati at a conservative estimate is 11,400 guests. If you bring 10,000 
Democrats to Cincinnati it will be enough for any convention. 

We have in the month of July one of the handsomest cities on 
earth. We will show you the best paved, the best cleaned city in Amer- 
ica, the best public buildings of any city in America. We will show you 
more than 400 miles of the finest street railroad system on earth. We 
will show you suburbs such as no other city outside of Boston can boast of. 

I hope that gentlemen from the other cities will pardon me if I criti- 
cise them slightly. In the first place, regarding St. Louis there is an 
insuperable objection, and that is we never want to fish in water that has 
been muddled by the Republicans. 

Chicago has had the convention for the last two or three times. We 
have heard the same old argument that it was a convention city, but down 
in your hearts do your feelings respond to that claim? Does the recollec- 
tion of your experiences there justify you in accepting that statement.'' As 
to New York, that city is one of the finest in the world (applause from 
New York delegates), but last summer I had occasion to hold a railroad 
meeting down at Coney Island. It was a pleasant place, but when I came 
to pay the hotel proprietor I parted with him with tears in my eyes, 
because Iknew I would never have money enough to go there again. 
y The great question overshadowing every other now, is the financial 
question. Do you suppose that there is any power, human or divine, that 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. HI 

can write a platform in New York which will be accepted in the West? It 
will be rung on you that the money changers have written your platform. 
It will be a false cry, a demagogical cry, but why should you take such a 
risk as that? Recently a gentleman said to me that he was for free 
silver and for that reason you must go to St. Louis. My friends, that 
question has got to be decided upon neutral ground where you will all have 
fair play. You want time to consider that question. Let the free silver 
people from the West and the gold bugs from the East meet with us and 
have it out. X— 

Gentlemen, don't make the mistake of going to a place where you will 
be criticised, where you will find that your convention is overshadowed by 
a howling mob (as it was in Chicago), but hold your convention in Cincin- 
nati, where you can have entire control over your convention, and deliber- 
ate without fear of outside influence of any kind. At Cincinnati you will 
be on neutral ground. Our invitation comes not from Democrats alone, 
but from every citizen of the Queen City of the West. We want to show 
you that we have not been idle for fifteen years; we want to show you that 
we have the finest city for a convention in this country. Our hearts will 
go out warm to you. Our hospitality will be so generous, we will take 
such good care of you, that your stay will be long and pleasantly remem- 
bered. You will be sorry to go, and wish to return. (Applause.) 

Senator Brice, of Ohio : I announce Judge John F. Fol« 
lett, of Cincinnati. 

The Chair : Judge Follett of Ohio. 

ADDRESS OF JUDGE JOHN F. FOLLETT 

On Behalf, of the City of Cincinnati. 

Oentlemen of the National Committee: It is a pleasure to a Democrat 
to invite the National Convention of his party to be held in the commu- 
nity where he lives, and more especially at this time in view of the 
importance of the convention which is to be held this year, not because I 
expect the holding of the convention in Cincinnati will make any differ- 
ence in the vote, but because I know that in Cincinnati your deliberations 
'wiil not be interfered with and you will have an opportunity to hold your 
councils together and reach your conclusions without any attempt at out- 
side interference. What Democracy wants is, we believe, that calm, de- 
liberate consideration and judgment that shall commend itself to the 
people of the United States. We are right on the border between what 
was once the North and the South! We are right at the center of popu- 
lation of the United States. We have all the facilities for taking care of 
the convention that any city in the United States has. I do not mean as 
ample, but ample enough. If you come to Cincinnati you will not be lost 
in the swim; you will not be overlooked; you will not be in a city where 
the people will not know whether there is anything going on or not. It 



32 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

will be the pride of every citizen to make your stay there not only pleas- 
ant, but as cheerful as it is possible to be. (Applause.) 

It has been said that Cincinnati is a hot city. There are hot days 
there and if any gentleman of this committee has been in the summer 
time in any of the cities designated and has not found a hot day he has 
been more fortunate than I have. I think the only time in my life that I 
was ever apprehensive of sunstroke was in New York in 1876. I know 
that our sister cities in the West share with us the discomforts of heat 
when the weather is hot; but we have a number of resorts in the immedi- 
ate vicinity where we can cool you off if it becomes necessary by reason 
of heated discussions arising while the convention is in session. 

I have heard it charged many times that the Democratic party is 
simply a follower of the Republicans. I do not want to be fed on the 
crumbs that fall from their table. I do not think for success this year it 
is necessary for the Democratic party to be fed on those crumbs. I 
expect after the election is over in November to seethe Democratic party 
resting in the bosom of the people and looking down to hear the wail of 
the Republican party calling for a drop of water. (Applause.) I am not 
a Democrat who ever gets discouraged. I am an Ohio Democrat. (Ap- 
plause.) I am one who has got accustomed to being beaten. We are as 
ready after defeat as we ever were before to engage in the contest again, 
and that is because we believe that we represent the party of the people 
and the party that will live while the government lasts and the rights of 
the people are preserved. 

Come to Cincinnati. Let us help you to deliberate calmly and without 
any interference whatsoever. Come to the point that stands midway be- 
tween the east and the west. Adopt your platform and again put afloat 
the grand old ship of state properly mastered and then we will all join in 
the grand ovation, " Sail on, O ship of state; sail on, O Union strong and 
great," etc. 

Gentlemen, we ask for this convention because we want it. We are 
here because we want it. If we do not satisfy you that of all the other 
cities in the Union Cincinnati is triumphantly a convention city, we will 
not be here again to trouble you. (Applause.) 

The Chair : From the announcement made by Mr. 
Ingalls of the failure of Cincinnati to invite the Republican 
Convention to be held within its borders, it is apparent that 
he and his associates consider and treat political Conventions 
in about the same w^ay they do their business matters. If it 
were suggested that he and his friends should buy a railroad 
he would promptly inquire into its bonded and floating 
indebtedness, etc., and not being satisfied as to its financial 
condition, the proposition would be declined with thanks. 
They probably inquired as to the financial condition of the 
Republican National Committee, only to learn that that com- 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 33 

mittee was looking for a city that would make up a very con- 
siderable deficiency. It is quite likely that they also made 
some inquiries with reference to the condition of the affairs of 
the Democratic National Committee. If they did they found 
that organization without any liabilities whatever. (Applause.) 
They likewise found it without any assets, except its political 
principles and the fidelity and loyalty of its people. 

Gentlemen of the Committee, it is quite likely that New 
York has some reasons why the Convention should be held 
there, and the gentlemen representing New^ York will now be 
accorded an opportunity of presenting her claims. 

Gov. Sheehan, of New York : The claims of New York 
will be presented by Mr. G. Waldo Smith, President of the 
National Wholesale Grocers Association ; by Mr. Simeon D. 
Ford, representing the hotels ; by Mr. Crane and by Col. John 
R. Fello^vs, and in that order. 

The Chair : The ladies and gentlemen who are present and 
the committee will be glad to hear the gentlemen in the order 
named. Please, gentlemen, remember the limitation of time. 

ADDRESS OF G. WALDO SMITH, OF NEW YORK. 

Gentlemen of the National Bemoaratic Committee: I appear before 
you in behalf of the New York Board of Trade and Transportation and 
other commercial bodies of the City of New York. I wish that I had the 
wisdom of Solomon and the eloquence of Demosthenes, in order that I 
might know just what to say, and just how to say such words as would 
impress you with the importance of my theme. But as I have not, I can 
only say a few plain things in a few plain and simple words. 

New York is not only the greatest American city, but it is also 
the greatest commercial city on earth. This fact has always been so well 
known, not only to New Yorkers, but to all the world, that New York peo- 
ple have rarely thought it worth while to even mention the fact. Hence, 
unlike other cities, she has never told of her greatness, nor vaunted her- 
self. 

The population of New York City proper has not quite reached the 
two million point, but take the population of the six cities that make up 
the greater New York, all contiguous to each other, not a vacant lot inter- 
vening, and we have a compact city of four million inhabitants in all 
except the name. New York has such capacity for entertainment that I 
once heard Mr. Depew say that a million people came to New York to 
attend the great Centennial celebration, and no one was crowded, and a 
million people went away, and no one missed them. Many people are ex- 
ceptionally afraid of a crowd, but there never has been a crowd in New 



34 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

York City, there never can be, there never will be; there is room enough 
for all. 

The New York newspaper is the greatest press on earth, and with its 
enormous dailies, its numerous pictorial weeklies and monthlies, it reaches 
not only every city, but every town and village in America, and indeed 
every place on earth where English speaking people can be found; this 
would be worth as much to any political party as large sums of money 
spent in circulating campaign documents. 

New York has more large and magnificent stores, and on exhibition 
a greater variety of all the products of the earth, the loom, the factory, 
and the laboratory, than any other city in the country. It is not only the 
Paris of America, but it is the Paradise of ladies as well, and nearly all 
the beautiful and wonderful things that were exhibited at the World's 
Fair, in Chicago, can be found in New York City. In fact New York is 
a world's fair exhibition such as cannot be found in any other place in 
the world. Even the celebrated "Midway Plaisance " of Chicago is 
found in fact at our Coney Island, only thirty minutes away from our City 
Hall. Large numbers of delegates and others who will attend the Conven- 
tion are merchants who make regular trips to New York for business pur- 
poses, and who could thus combine public business, private business and 
pleasure at greatly reduced expense. 

New York harbor is the grandest harbor in the world, and the numer- 
ous vessels continually arriving and departing make it the grandest sight 
that human eyes can behold. A few days since I stood where I had a 
range of vision covering but a small portion of the harbor, and yet I 
counted one hundred and eleven moving vessels, including ocean grey- 
hounds and four-masted ships. It is a sight worth coming from the foot 
hills of the Sierra Nevadas to see. The real ocean greyhound, of which 
only a model was exhibited at Chicago, may be found at any one of sixty 
piers on our North River front. The real " White Squadron," of which 
only a model was exhibited at Chicago, to the wonderment of those who 
saw it, can be found across our East River at our Brooklyn Navy Yard, 
an enduring testimony of the efficiency, patriotism and foresight of our 
esteemed fellow citizen, William C. Whitney, late Secretary of the Navy. 

We have the most numerous and the most elegant places of amuse- 
ment of any city on earth, and all the world's best artists can always be 
seen and heard. Our Park roads are crowded with the most elegant equi- 
pages that can be seen at any place on earth, affording a sight that will 
delight the eye of the wives and daughters of the delegates. We have 
finer seaside resorts, and more of them, and we have a thousand miles of 
seashore within three hours of New York, with elegant hotels that will 
accommodate hundreds of thousands of people, and the greatest charm of 
all is found in the fact that the Atlantic Ocean washes the shore at our 
very feet. 

A week spent in New York and intelligently spent, seeing the best 
it has to show, and learning the best it has to teach, is a university 
course and a liberal education. New York is but five hours from the 
capital at Washington, and I take it for granted that every patriotic 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 35 

American citizen desires not only to see the metropolis of America, but 
also the capital of the nation, with its magnificent public buildings, its 
broad avenues and its palatial residences. If the convention is held in a 
western city, this privilege can only be enjoyed at greatly increased 
expense, because delegates will not have the advantage of reduced rates 
to these cities as they will from their homes to the place where the con- 
vention is held. New York is one of the cleanest, also one of the health- 
iest of cities. It is entirely surrounded by deep, swift-running saltwater, 
and is swept by ocean breezes, and I know of no city that will compare 
with it for average summer coolness, especially when we remember that 
we can leave the city and in one hour be sporting with Neptune in the 
cooling waters of the sea. 

New York has the best telegraphic facilities on earth, as it is the 
centre of the entire system, and the point from which the telegraphic 
business radiates to all points of the compass. 

Only one national convention has ever been held in New York City, 
and all the delegates from Eastern and Middle States have been com- 
pelled to travel West and South in order to attend these quadrennial 
gatherings. Hence it would seem, in common justice, as if it were New 
York's turn. It will be urged that Western cities are more central, and 
while this is true geographically, yet I believe that if a careful estimate 
were made it would show that all the delegates could reach New York 
with an aggregate of less miles of travel than they could reach any place 
in the Mississippi Valley. 

I engaged an expert accountant to make an estimate of what propor- 
tion of our population lived within twenty-five hours, or less, of New 
York, with the following result : Taking the census of 1890, which gives 
a population of 62,968,448, there are living in New York, 3,394,000 ; 
within two hours or less of New York, 5,510,000 ; within six hours, or 
less, of New York, 10,531,000 ; within twelve hours of New York, 
18,712,000 ; within twenty-five hours of New York, 34,653,000. Living 
beyond the twenty-five hour limit, 27,968,000, showing also that about 
35,000,000 of our population occupy about one-seventh of our entire terri- 
tory, while only 28,000,000 occupy the remaining six-sevenths of our terri- 
tory. It is about time that the 28,000,000 visited the homes of the 
34,000,000, and return the numerous visits which they have received from 
the people of the East. 

Madison Square Garden will seat more people than any other fire- 
proof building on earth. It has separate convention headquarters for 
every State and Territory in the United States, It is situated in the very 
heart of the city, on a fine park, within from one to twenty minutes of 
enough hotels to accommodate all visitors without putting two in a bed, 
or even two in a room. New York receives the finest and freshest food 
products of the earth, both from land and sea, and the cuisine of our 
hotels is the best that the markets of the world can provide, and skill 
prepare. 

In conclusion, gentlemen, I beg to extend to you, on behalf of the 
merchants and the citizens of New York generally, without regard to 



86 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

party affiliations, a most earnest invitation to hold your National Conven- 
tion in our city. We will give you a right royal welcome, worthy of the 
metropolis. We will provide you with accommodations and facilities 
that cannot be approached in any other city, and if you come to New 
York, you will be so thoroughly satisfied that, I venture to predict, the 
question of where the Democratic National Convention shall meet will be 
settled for all time, and that no other place than the great metropolis of 
America will ever be thought of thereafter. 

ADDRESS OF SIMEON FORD. 
Proprietor Of The Grand Union Hotel, New York City. 

Mr. Chairman and GenU&men of the Committee: Mr. Straus sug- 
gested that your committee should be addressed by what he was pleased 
to term a "plain up-and-down New York hotel-keeper;" and as I am 
undoubtedly the " plainest " facially and the most "up-and-down " archi- 
tecturally of all the landlords, I have been selected. 

Fortunately for me, landlords are not expected to be intellectual. 
(Laughter.) Brains are not required in our business. All we have to do 
is to open our hotels and the boarders will tell us how to run 'em. 
(Great applause and laughter.) We landlords hope to have this conven- 
tion held in New York first, because we believe it is the best place for it; 
second, for the honor of our metropolis, of which we are loyal citizens; 
third, because it is to be held at a time of year when our great hotels 
are well-nigh empty and it will give us a chance to make an honest 
dollar — with the accent on the honest — and likewise give us an oppor- 
tunity to entertain and care for the -delegates and visitors in a way 
novel in the history of National political conventions, and which would 
redound to the credit of New York and her hotel keepers. 

I will not attempt to recite the glories of New York. That has 
already been done by a tongue of silver and by a lung of brass. (Laugh- 
ter.) Besides, you have all been there before, many a time, and proba- 
bly know more about the city than we do. 

You have already heard and have still to hear the most dazzling 
accounts of the beauties and glories of other cities. But of what avail 
are all these beauties and glories to the weary delegate if he must spend 
his nights fitfully slumbering upon a billiard table, or uneasily tossing 
within the narrow confines of a hotel bath-tub? (Laughter.) 

I admit that there may be some delegates who would not be seriously 
injured by spending a night or two in a bath-tub. I understand that the 
Honorable Chauncey M. Depew slept in one at Minneapolis, and I pre- 
sume it was of benefit to him; but the ordinary delegate naturally 
prefers to "wrap the drapery of his couch about him and lie down to 
pleasant dreams;" and you can't blame him. 

To such I would say that New York is the only city in the land that 
can give every visitor to a National Convention a comfortable bed — at 
night. Our motto is " Excelsior," but we don't force our motto into our 
hair mattresses. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 87 

"Sleep sweetly in this quiet room 
O thou, whoe'er thou art, 

And let no mournful yesterday- 
Disturb thy peaceful heart." 

This sentiment doubtless sounds strained to delegates who have been 
accustomed to sleeping four in a bed and two in a bureau at conventions, 
but New York is a big town and has big hotels and lots of 'em. 

New York has more hotel accommodations than the cities of Chicago, 
Cincinnati and St. Louis combined. Lest I be accused of boasting, I 
will not dwell upon their merits, but content myself with the modest 
assertion that they are the best and finest in the world. 

We have fine hotels for fine people; good hotels for good, people, 
plain hotels for plain people and a few bum hotels for bums; but we do 
not expect the latter to be patronized or to come into requisition during 
the convention. 

We have heard some very glowing descriptions of western cities 
from gentlemen here and in the lobbies, and especially the most entranc- 
ing tales of the beauties of the Union Depot of St. Louis. I spent two 
days at St. Louis once, during one of those crisp, frosty spells which 
they describe as being so prevalent there in the month of July (laughter), 
and when I got to the Union Depot bound for New York, I admit that it 
was the most beautiful and welcome sight that ever gladdened my 
eyes. Now we have a number of depots in New York (most of which 
are located in Hoboken, New Jersey); but were they as fair as Alladin's 
palace you would not enjoy seeing them, for your heart would be heavy at 
the thought of leaving our beautiful City by the Sea. 

Chicago has a sign in front of her headquarters which reads, "Most 
of the delegates pass through Chicago on their way here." Can you 
blame 'em? (Laughter.) 

We have to ' pass through ' lots of uncomfortable things in life- 
teething, measles and mumps — but why remind us of them? While it is 
true that most of the delegates have gone through Chicago, Chicago, it is 
equally true, has gone through most of the delegates. (Laughter.) 

Gentlemen of the Committee, come down to salt water and hold the 
next Democratic National Convention, and the hotel-keepers of our city 
pledge themselves, through me, to treat you and all who come with you 
with absolute justice and fairness. We agree not to increase our prices 
one iota. W^e are accustomed to handling large gatherings and we have 
yet to hear a complaint of extortion against a New York landlord. You 
will find us hail fellows, men of fair dealing, to be relied upon. We 
make you this pledge and we will live up to it to the letter, and when you 
are ready to return to your homes, which you will do with regret, you 
will sigh with the poet Shenstone: 

"Who 'er has traveled life's dull round. 
Where'er his stages may have been, 
May sigh to think he still has found. 
The warmest welcome at an inn." 



ZS Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

ADDRESS OF T. C. T. GRAIN 
On Behalf of New York. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : It seems to me that a 
very plain and a very direct question is presented to us for our consider- 
ation and for your determination, and it is really this: In which city 
would it be best for the Democratic party — considering it from the stand- 
point of party expediency,, considering it from the standpoint of our 
party's success— to hold the next Democratic Convention ? 

We are here not so much to discuss the beauties of different cities 
not even so much to discuss the question of the comforts and the conven- 
iences to be had in the different cities as we are to determine the plain and 
practical question, in which city would it be best from the standpoint of 
the success of our party to hold the next Democratic Convention ? 
Now, it is possible that some member of the committee may say, or some 
member of the committee may think, that it does not make very much 
difference in what city the convention shall be held so far as the success 
of the Democratic party is concerned in the coming campaign. I regard 
the very fact, Mr. Chairman, that this question is up for consideration at 
this time; the very fact that it is receiving the thoughtful consideration of 
earnest men; the very fact that it is being presented by the representa- 
tives of different cities; the very fact that it has always in the past history 
of our party received careful consideration, as a conclusive demonstration 
that it is of importance m its relation to our party's welfare whether we 
shall hold our convention in one city rather than in another. The reasons 
which make this question important are easily stated. They will readily 
occur to you all. To demonstrate the fact that it is important requires 
merely a statement of the difference between choosing the most expedi- 
ent, the most convenient and the most accessible place on the one hand, 
or, on the other hand, of choosing a place confessedly inconvenient, con- 
fessedly remote and confessedly inexpedient. I shall, therefore, at the 
very threshold present this question in the light of political expediency 
and it is along this line rather than any other that I intend to submit a 
few considerations to the gentlemen of the committee. 

We have heard from the gentlemen representing Cincinnati of the 
intention to improve their auditorium. Very likely it requires improve- 
ment. We have heard the fact mentioned m somewhat mixed phrase that 
the delegates will be there *' taken in,''"' whatever that may mean; but in a 
discussion of the question of the political advantages to accrue from the 
holding of the convention in Cincinnati rather than in any other city we 
have heard only this singular, this strange, this anomalous, this unreason- 
able argument advanced that it must be held there because it should be 
held upon neutral ground upon the financial question. 

I have heard it stated, and it has been a matter of current rumor in 
the lobbies of the hotel here, that certain gentlemen were urging that the 
silver question entered into the consideration of a selection of the place, 
and that the members of this very committee were going to be influenced 
one way or another along the very lines of the argument laid down in 



Meeting, January 16, 189G. 39 

the speech of one of the speakers representing the City of Cincinnati. I 
can hardly credit it. It seems too astounding. It seems to me to be Hke 
an affront, if I may use that word, to the inteUigence and the judgment of 
those sterhng Democrats and men of poHtical experience who have been 
selected in every State and Territory as the representatives of our party 
in the National Committee. 

Then I have heard the charge about Wall street dominatmg a con- 
vention held in. the City of New York. Why, if that influence is so great, 
if that influence is so harmful, should it not be rather harmful to the 
democracy of the city in which the street is located ? St. Louis sometimes 
has gone other than Democratic. In Chicago they have fought many a 
desperate struggle to hold aloft the banner of our party; but in the City of 
New York, where they tell us that the money influence militates against 
the strength of the party, we find it triumphant in the hour ()f national 
defeat, and when in other portions of the country it is in despair. We are 
always the band of Democrats upon whom the whole party from east to 
west relies in the hour of emergency. (Applause.) 

The gold influence of New York detrimental to the Democratic 
party ? Mr. Chairman, ask the treasurer of the Democratic National 
Committee during the hours of a trying campaign if it is not out of the 
doors of the offices on Wall street and out of the doors of its banking 
institutions that the gold rolls and the money is poured into the coffers of 
the party to enable us to preach Democratic doctrine in the west? What, 
the wealth of New York and the gold of New York against Democratic 
doctrine? I hardly think that argument will receive serious consideration. 

Some of these gentlemen tell us that New York City does not 
require a Democratic convention because the people of the City of New 
York have been tried and found so true and so steadfast in their Democracy. 
There have been times in our political history when men have seemed to 
think it wise to put a slight upon those sections of the country the 
political principles of whose people were firmly grounded, and have seemed 
to think it wise to pacify those sections where the people seem most 
doubtful. I confess that it has always seemed to me to be of the very 
essence of political wisdom to encourage and build up the party in its strong- 
holds, but I will meet the gentlemen on their own ground. Suppose you 
are right. Suppose the convention ought to go to some State that is 
trembling in the balance. What of the State of New York ? I venture 
to predict that the next Republican candidate for the presidency will be 
selected from the State of New York. Ev<iry influence that the Repub- 
lican party can bring to bear will be brought to bear to swing that State 
from the Democratic column into the Republican column. This is the 
time above every other time when, if the political parties in the State of 
New York are evenly matched, we should hold the Democratic Conven- 
tion in the City of New York. Consider the influence of it. Consider the 
influence of it upon the surrounding States; the influence of it upon the 
State of New Jersey and upon the State of Connecticut, which are 
debatable grounds. 

Let me tell you another thing: the newspapers of the City of New 



40 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

York, and I say it advisedly, to a greater extent than perhaps any other 
city circulate in every section of the country. They will contain fuller 
and ampler accounts necessarily of the proceedings of the convention if 
held in the very city in which they are published. This of itself is an 
argument in favor of the City of New York. 

Gentlemen, you who come from the South, members of this com- 
mittee from Southern States, remember what the City of New York has 
done for the South. We stood by you in Congress on the question of the 
Force Bill, and time and time again the press of the State of New York 
has been found faithful on all i -^sues which are purely Southern. I appeal 
to you by the bohd of that memory. I appeal to one and all of you in 
the interest of the Democratic party to consider whether your party's suc- 
cess is not a greater question than the question of the free coinage of 
silver or any other subsidiary question. Let us ask ourselves the single 
question, in what manner can we best promote the success of our party ? 
If there is some one who is hesitating between two opinions, I ask him to 
lay local pride aside and, independent of local feeling, to act solely for 
the preservation of Democratic principles. 

ADDRESS OF HON. JOHN R. FELLOWS 

On Behalf of the City of New York. 

Mr. Chairman and Oentlemen of the Committee: A citizen's com- 
mittee of the City of New York have desired me to express their wish that 
the next Democratic Convention shall be held in that city. My politics 
are fairly well known to many of these gentlemen and I do not deem it 
essential that, in the very brief remarks I shall make, I should enter the 
domain of political discussion in the least. All that has been admirably 
done by those who have preceded me. I speak solely in the name of the 
citizens of New York, irrespective of party. These gentlemen, with most 
commendable spirit and liberality, have raised such a fund as will be 
necessary in any place where the convention may be located to furnish 
the requisite accommodations to the Committee and to make comfortable 
those who shall be present as the representatives of the party throughout 
the nation. In this contribution all alike have joined. Republicans and 
Democrats. It has not been in the slightest a party movement. It is a 
spontaneous request; the wish and desire of our entire population. New 
York has been generously treated in regard to the time allowed for the 
discussion of its merits and to present its claims for your consideration. 
Therefore I should be a trespasser if I traveled over the. ground which has 
already been so well covered by those who have spoken before me. I 
will not speak at any length of the perfect character of the accommo- 
dations that can be extended to delegates in the City of New York. 
Nearly every one knows them. Every person in this hall has at one 
time or another visited that city, and they know well that in this respect 
there is no place upon this continent which for one moment can present 
a claim of that kind in comparison with the City of New York. 

I have listened to what has been stated with regard to the other cities 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 41 

and I believe that the gentlemen who represent those cities will, to the 
best extent of which they are capable, see that everybody is made as 
comfortable as possible. But their capacities are inadequate. Every 
gentleman here knows that we have been attending conventions for the 
past twenty years of our history in which we have been crowded to the 
point of extreme and almost insufferable inconvenience. Everyone 
knows that in the great city of the interior, the only rival in population 
and in extent of the City of New York, the hotel accommodations are 
utterly and absolutely inadequate to the wants of the convention in so far 
as preserving the comfort of the individual man goes. 

In the city of New York you have already received the assurance of 
a body of gentlemen who have never yet failed to keep their promises, 
that there shall be no advancement of hotel rates, no extortion or increase 
whatsoever. In the name of our hotel proprietors and in behalf of our 
citizens, and in behalf of the Citizens' Committee who all desire this conven- 
tion, we promise that each delegate shall have the accommodation of a 
separate room, a place alone by himself, if he desires it, with no increase 
whatsoever in the hotel rates. There is no other city in the Union in 
which that is possible. Cincinnati has told you that she has hotel accom- 
modations for 10,000. Within five minutes walk of Madison Square 
Garden, the hall in which the convention will be held if the convention 
shall come to our city, there is hotel accommodation for more than 
20,000 people upon just such terms as I have suggested. In that imme- 
diate neighborhood I will mention the Imperial Hotel, the Grand Hotel, 
the Hoffman House, the Brunswick, the Fifth Avenue, the Union Square, 
and, but a short distance away, the Grand Union Hotel, worthily repre- 
sented by the gentleman who, with inimitable humor, has presented the 
cause of the hotel-men. In the hotels I have mentioned and others die 
names of which for the moment I do not recall, more than 20,000 guests 
can be accommodated upon the terms I have mentioned. The whole 
City of New York at any time can provide for 100,000 visitors in its midst 
with separate rooms, separate beds and with all the accommodations of 
hotels unequaled in their character. 

Now, whatever may be the merits of other cities, one claim is at least 
our own, and that is that in the summer during the heated term, all of you 
know our opportunity for going within thirty minutes from the crowded 
city to the numerous seaside resorts which have accommodations for from 
250,000 to 300,000 people. That number of people can in thirty minutes go 
from their places of business to their hotels and cottages upon the sea shore, 
which is a benefit which no other city in this country can extend to its visitors. 

More than that, we have a hall which is simply unequalled in this 
country. It has been told you that it will seat 15,000 people — 16,000, to 
be accurate, is its seating capacity — and 10,000 more can easily be accom- 
modated. Its acoustic properties are magnificent. It was originally 
prepared for concerts and it has been tested by the voices of our most 
distinguished singers and speakers. It is one of the best halls for con- 
vention purposes that exists. It is not a structure to be erected; it is 
not a temporary building to be torn down after the convention is over 



42 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

with all the inadequate accommodations that such a structure affords; but 
it is a permanent building and one of the grandest specimens of archi- 
tecture that the country possesses. It is in the very heart of the city 
within a stone's throw of Madison Square, resting, indeed, upon the north- 
ern extremity of the park and exceedingly convenient to every important 
location. We can give you in that hall a separate committee room of 
ample size for each of the forty-five states and the territories. There is 
no other hall in the country that can do that or that can do anything in 
comparison with it. So that if it is requisite that a delegation should 
meet for consultation at various periods during the sitting of the conven- 
tion they may go into these reception rooms without going from under the 
roof in which the convention itself is held. We will decorate that room in any 
manner the committee may prescribe in order to make it attractive to our 
visitors. We will supply — what all cities will supply so far as that goes — 
the music, the telegraph accommodations, ample resources for the press; 
and all these will be at the expense not of the Democratic party but of 
the citizens of New York. We are here to extend an invitation, not to bid 
at an auction. It matters not v/hat those expenses are; they will be fully 
met. You have heard from the political part of New York; you have 
heard from the hotel-men ; you have heard from its great trade organiza- 
tions, but on behalf of the Citizen's Committee I undertake now to pledge 
to this committee that, if the question of railroad expenditures is a hin- 
drance in the way of securing us this convention, we are prepared now 
to make the railroad rates from the extremest point of this country to the 
City of New York as low as they would be to any central city in our coun- 
try. It shall cost the delegate from Washington, Oregon, California and 
the extremest part of the South no more to come to the city of New York 
than it would cost him to go to the central city nearest to his residence. 
This we are prepared to do because it is only proper that the people of 
a great city, desiring the honor of an assemblage like this, should do as 
much for their visitors. New York's hospitality and liberality are too well 
known to need me to advert to it m your presence. You have never called 
upon her in any hour or situation of calamity or disaster that any portion 
of our country has experienced when she has not responded with a limit- 
less generosity. (Applause.) She is prepared to extend and she pledges 
herself to extend to you a welcome that no other city m this Union is capa- 
ble of, conceding to them the most earnest desire to do their best. New 
York is better equipped for the convention than other city but we are 
deserving of some inspiration at your hands. Why, gentlemen, in your 
hour of defeat, when the heart of the Democracy all over this Union was 
bowed down, you have received encouragement from the city of New 
York. You talk of Democratic faith. Wh'ere has it ever been kept so 
completely and left as vigorous and active as in the City of New York? 
One after another of the States have been prostrated under the blows of 
our enemy. One after another of our cities to which we are accustomed to 
look for large majorities have gone down in the dust, but New York City 
stands to-day, as she is prepared to stand through all the future, never hav- 
ing given her vote to any but a Democratic candidate; and I pledge now 



Meetiixg, January 16, 1896. 43 

for the next Democratic candidate a majority in that city which will carry 
him safely through the Empire State. (Applause.) 

Where is the locality that has shown as much recuperative power to 
lift itself up above adverse influences? A year ago we almost fell under 
the stroke of our enemy. A year passed and by 25,000 majority we 
regained the city. Give us that touch of elbow and that response of 
heart to heart with the Democracy of the three States which, joined to the 
south, we must have to give success, and we will be invincible against 
any assaults which can be made by our enemies. (Applause.) 

You fear Wall Street. You, gentlemen, who are afraid of the 
influences of Wall Street hold your virtue, it seems to me, by too slight a 
tenure. Are you going to New York to fall easy victims to the blandish- 
ments of Wall Street, or are your delegates to this convention going to be 
men with convictions which no locality can change, which no surround- 
ings can influence — convictions which impel you to endeavor to assure the 
success and the welfare of the party? If such is indeed the spirit that 
animates you, then I apprehend that, seductive as New York is and as 
lavish as may be the blandishments of Wall Street upon you, you will 
not surrender yourselves easy victims to those seductions any more than 
we will yield our principles or surrender our views when we shall be 
called to go as delegates to some western city. (Applause.) This fight 
is not to be determined by the locality in which the convention is held; 
but very much influence may be exerted by the locality. This is especially 
true if you speak of the pivotal states which must range themselves in 
the Democratic column if there is to be any hope of success. I appre- 
hend that neither Ohio nor Illinois can be counted upon to give its elec- 
toral vote next fall to the Democratic candidate. I imagine that, so far 
as Missouri is concerned, if Missouri is to return by virtue of the inflexi- 
ble integrity of her Democrats to the Democratic legions she will do it 
as well without the convention as with it. Besides, if a convention exer- 
cises such influence over the localities where they are held it seems to 
me that the best we could do in St. Louis would be to occupy the three or 
four days we would be there dispelling the contagion breathed by the 
preceding convention assembled there, because if our convention ' is 
important to St. Louis it must be that the Republican Convention will 
have an influence when it assembles there. No, gentlemen, the States 
that need encouragement are those where all the history of the past has 
demonstrated to you that there is a majority of Democrats and whose 
electoral votes can be obtained if there are no disturbing local influences 
to prevent that majority from asserting itself. 

Now one little bit of sentiment and I have finished. You will pardon 
me if I indulge in it. Here I see before me gentlemen who are repre- 
sentatives of that State in which 1 passed my whole boyhood and my 
young manhood. I loved the State as I love all these gentlemen who 
represent the States of the South, by whose side I stood and with whom 
I suffered in that eventful past from 1861 to 1865. I went to New York 
and I have learned to love that city, with a love that shall never die, for 
the generous treatment it has extended to me, a treatment typical and 



44 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

illustrative of the treatment which it extends to all who go there and seek 
in that active competition honor and remuneration. With what a thrill I 
remember how, when you were in peril, when troops were overunning 
your legislatures, when armed forces were dragging representatives of the 
people from their high stations, when the South sent up a piteous cry for 
simple justice to the nation, that it was the voice of New York, uttered 
through Cooper Union, rolling like thunder over this broad land, which 
gave to you the rights which no hand since has dared to wrest from you. 
(Applause.) 

New York, with a heart as great as her enterprise, knows no enemies; 
she recognizes all as friends and will treat all as such. Come to New 
York, come to a Democratic city, come to the welcome which its citizens 
will extend to you irrespective of party. Having come and experienced 
once the courtesy and generosity of our citizens, I am sure that each 
delegate will thank this committee for a duty most carefully and gra- 
ciously performed. (Applause.) 

The Chair : With becoming modesty, St. Louis will be 
heard last. Col. John G. Prather, of Missouri, will indicate 
the order in which the speakers are to be heard. 

Col. Prather, of Missouri : Governor Francis will speak 
first in the interest of the city ; then our Mayor, Mayor Wal- 
bridge ; then Gov. Stone will say a few words ; and Senator 
Vest will do the wind-up. 

The Chair ; I am sure you will all be charmed to hear 
the speakers in the order named. 

ADDRESS OF EX-GOVERNOR DAVID R. FRANCIS 

On Behalf of the City of St. Louis. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Democratic National Committee: 
St. Louis salutes you as the worthy representatives of the greatest polit- 
ical party the world has ever seen, a party whose organization was con- 
temporaneous with the birth of the Republic; a party whose principles 
will endure as long as our Republican institutions survive. We recog- 
nize that it is your duty and your desire to act for the best interests of the 
Democratic party. I am here as a Democrat, but, proud as I am of St. 
Louis, devoted as I am to Missouri, I would not ask you to locate the 
National Democratic Convention in my city or my state if I did not sin- 
cerely feel that it would be promotive of the best interests of the Demo 
cratic party. (Applause.) This is a business proposition, it has been 
said. There is also politics in your action. This is a critical period in 
the history of the Democratic party. There are serious differences in our 
party, as none can deny. We ask you to come to a city, frame your plat- 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 45 

form and nominate your candidates in a place where you will not be 
influenced by any local sentiment whatever. We propose to give you 
entire and exclusive control of the convention hall and all the tickets of 
admission. Our citizens have generously contributed ample means to 
defray the entire expenses of the convention and the members of the 
National Committee. We ask nothing in return except the honor of 
your presence. A National Democratic Convention is a big event in the 
history of St. Louis. Gentlemen from New York have told you of the 
greatness of that city, that a million people may come and a million 
people may go and their presence never be felt and their exit never be 
known. We want you to come to a place where a National Democratic 
Convention is a very important event. We shall look forward to your 
coming. We shall remember your presence there. Not only will our 
hotels be open and their rates not advanced but we will extend to you that 
generous hospitality which opens to you the doors of our residences and 
our hearts as well. The Democratic Convention was held in St. Louis 
in 1888. I happen to have here, handed to me but a few moments ago, 
the report of the committee which had in charge the arrangements of that 
convention and, with your permission, I will read to you six lines of that 
report. 

" It is difficult to speak of the recent convention at St. Louis and of 
the hospitality of that city without seeming to exaggerate. When her 
delegates appeared before the National Committee in Washington in 
February, 1888, to urge St. Louis' claims as the city in which the conven- 
tion should be held, so many promises were made in the way of attractions 
that it did not seem possible that all of them could be fulfilled. The 
result, however, proved the contrary. Not only was every promise 
redeemed in full but many steps were taken to insure the comfort 
and happiness of the thousands of guests not contemplated at the out- 
set, etc." 

We have a hall with a seating capacity of 12,000 persons. It is not a 
temporary structure; it is a substantial brick building of modern architec- 
ture containing an area of 434 by 330 feet. Within the walls of that build- 
ing are more than forty-five committee rooms. Under one roof every 
State and every committee can have a separate room assigned to it. 

So far as the location is concerned, as you all know, St. Louis is, of all 
the cities competing for this convention, the nearest to the center of pop- 
ulation. It is the center of the productive power of this country; in that 
section of the country which has built up these great cities of which the 
gentlemen have spoken so eloquently. We want you to come to our 
midst. We want an opportunity to show you how we can appreciate 
your presence. A gentleman from New York stated that within twenty- 
five hours' ride of New York were 34,000,000 of people. Within 500 miles 
of St. Louis, or within twelve hours' ride, are 32,500,000, or, within a dis- 
tance which can be traversed in one-half the time, there are as many peo- 
ple as there are within twenty-five hours ride of New York. The gentle- 
man has told you of the greatness of New York. We are not here to 
advertise St. Louis, but there are a few very potent facts in connection 



46 Meeting, January 16, 1806. 

with that city which I cannot forbear stating upon this occasion. St. 
Louis has the largest railroad station in the world — not in the United 
States, but in the world. It has the largest hardware house in the world. 
It has the largest drug house in the world. It has the largest woodenware 
house in the world. It has the largest tobacco factory in the world. 
It has the largest lead works, the largest brick yards and the largest 
stove and range factory in the world. We are small in population 

compared with New York but we have western enterprise and push, 
and now we have the largest brewery in the United States, y^ Time 
will not admit of my recounting all the advantages of St. Louis. I only 
want to remind you, members of the committee, if you are civil service 
reformers, that St. Louis has been tried as a convention city and has 
proven equal to the task. Therefore, if you believe in civil service 
reform, give us another convention. If you do not believe in civil service 
reform, then we appeal to you as the followers of the immortal Jackson. 
What has Missouri done for the Democratic party? For twenty-four 
years, with unwavering fidelity, her electoral vote has been cast for the 
Democratic nominee. What other State can say as much? In 1896, 
just as surely will that vote be cast for the Democratic candidate. 
If, therefore, you want to reward party service and act in a way 
in which the party can be held together, give St. Louis this conven- 
tion. It has been charged that the Republican party has already given 
its convention to St. Louis. It is true the Republican convention will be 
held in that city on June 16, and about the middle of June is the only hot 
weather we ever have in St. Louis. July is always cool with us and I 
think the bureau of statistics will bear out that statement. Are you going 
to allow us to return and say to the Democrats of our city and State that 
you have refused to us what the Republican Committee gave to the Repub- 
lican party of Missouri? They are claiming that State. We do not despair 
of carrying it. We did not despair of carrying the State in 1894. We 
never believed that they had carried it until the returns were in and 
counted the second time. We do not believe that they will carry that 
State in 1896. For all that we cannot see how you can resist the appeal 
we make to you to bring your convention to our gates and thereby inspire 
the Democrats of Missouri with that enthusiasm which will carry the 
State by a majority of 40,000. The Republicans are going to have the 
largest convention that they have ever held, but if you bring the Demo- 
ocratic convention there the attendance at it will be larger than at the 
Republican Convention — if we have to go to the States of Texas and 
Arkansas to bring in Democrats to help it out. St. Louis is not only 
the geographical center of this country but it is accessible by twenty trunk 
lines of railroad to say nothing of the mighty Mississippi and its tributaries 
Avhich flow by our doors. We are nearer the center or nearer the meet- 
ing line of the different sentiments that are said to prevail in the Demo- 
cratic party on the important issue that is now before us, than any other 
city. In the citizenship of St. Louis are combined the characteristics of 
the Puritan and the cavalier, and there, we flatter ourselves, is the true 
type of American citizenship. M^^e want you to come to that kind of a com- 



Meeting, January 1G, 1S9(). 47 

munity and we say to you — I believe it sincerely — that the platform you 
will there adopt and the nominations you will make will meet with mcjre 
enthusiastic support than the platform adopted or candidates chcjsen in 
any other city in this country. 

We are the largest commercial city west of the eastern border of the 
country and the largest commercial city south of the northern boundary 
of the country. So, for every reason, we think ourselves entitled to this 
convention. We are here in force, we are in earnest and we appeal to 
you as Democrats to come to St. Louis knowing that, as you did not 
regret it in 1888, you will not regret it in 1896. (Applause.) 



ADDRESS OF MAYOR CYRUS P. WALBRIDGE 
On Behalf of St. Louis. 

Mr. CJiairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: It would be a matter 
of considerable surprise if the managers of the great Democratic party- 
were to give much weight to the political advice of a Republican mayor, 
and for that reason I shall refrain from offering any such advice. There 
are, however, gentlemen upon our delegation from whom you will hear or 
have heard, whose political experience, whose standmg in your party, 
whose records in the history of their state and the nation entitle their polit- 
ical views to your careful and respectful consideration. (Applause.) 

I shall take only enough of your time to officially extend the courtesy 
of St. Louis to this committee; not as a mere perfunctory duty, but as the 
glad mouthpiece of a united people, who, without regard to party, honestly 
and earnestly desire to entertain the Democratic Convention of 1896. 
(Applause.) As the official head of that city I promise that every pledge- 
made upon this platform by representatives of St. Louis shall be honestly 
and carefully executed. I ask you to remember that this tender and 
these promises come from the financial Gibraltar of 1893^from a city whose 
finances and financial methods are always safe. I ask you to remem- 
ber that they come from the metropolis of a State that stands above all 
other states except four, and which is now awakening to a period of pros- 
erity that is likely in the near future to place her at the head of the 
column. I ask you to remember that these pledges come from that focal 
point which Governor Francis has so well described where are merged 
waves of sentiment from every part of the Union, from the only city of 
which it can be truly said she knows no section except the broad domain 
of the Union, a city that is controlled by no " ism " except Americanism. 
We are aware of the difficulty and the responsibility resting upon this 
committee, but we believe also if you select St. Louis as a place for hold- 
ing your convention that every St. Louis Republican and St. Louis Demo- 
ocrat will vie with each other to so entertain the delegates to that 



48 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

convention that, when they return to their homes, all will say as the result 
of your action to-day, "you acted wisely and well." 



ADDRESS OF GOV. WILLIAM J. STONE, OF MISSOURI, 

On Behalf of the City of St. Louis. 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee: In view of what 
has been already said and of the further fact that Senator Vest is to fol- 
low me, it is really unnecessary that I should occupy your time at all, and 
I would not do so except to oblige my colleagues whohave requested it. 
It seems to me that in selecting a place to hold the nSt national conven- 
tion three things should be considered: the accessibility of the place, its 
capacity to accommodate delegates and visitors, and the political aims and 
effects of the convention. With reference to the first two, I will not add 
anything to what has been already said. I will not take time in compar- 
ing the merits of the several cities competing for this distinction at your 
hands. I haven't any doubt that either can take care of a convention, 
and that those who attend the same in any city will be satisfied. I have 
the greatest respect for all these cities. I am proud of their greatness 
because I share in their glory. The convention which is about to assem- 
ble under your authority, will be, in my judgment, the most important 
party convention held in recent history. It is of the first importance that 
it should be a deliberative body. The best, the wisest, the purest, the most 
patriotic, the most faithful and devoted Democrats from all the states 
should be sent to that convention to represent their constituencies, and 
when assembled, now more than ever in our history, these men should 
deliberate with one principal purpose in view, the welfare of the Demo- 
cratic party. (Applause.) 

St. Louis has added 300,000 people to its population within the last 
ten years. These have come from every section of the Union in almost 
equal numbers. East, north and south have contributed to this growth 
and to-day St. Louis is the most typical and thoroughly American city in 
America. It more thoroughly than any other represents all the social, 
industrial and political conditions which characterize our National life. 
Delegates attending a convention in St. Louis, no matter from what section 
or State they come, will find instantly large numbers of St. Louisians with 
whom they will be immediately at home. St. Louis and Missouri, as 
Governor Francis remarked, are equi distant between the two extremes of 
the country and the sentiments of the people there upon all great political 
questions are conservative. You cannot find a city on the continent 
where this convention can assemble under auspices that will leave it 
so entirely free from extraneous influences calculated to dominate it, as 
will prevail in St. Louis. True, upon the important issues of the day, 
upon the currency and other questions which have engaged the attention 
of our party and all parties, we have pronounced convictions, but we 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 49 

respect each other's views and are conservative in our treatment of them. 
(Applause.) 

We want this convention at St. Louis. We want it in Missouri; not 
because without it we cannot carry Missouri, for we will carry Missouri 
anyhow. (Applause.) I have not a shadow of doubt as to that. But, 
gentlemen of the committee, the Western States, the trans-Mississippi 
States, have asked very little at the hands of the Democratic party of the 
nation. For twenty odd years we have voted with uncomplaining and 
with enthusiastic regularity for New York, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois can- 
didates for the presidency and vice-presidency. We have on two occasions 
only in this generation had a national convention west of the Mississippi, 
and, on one occasion we had a candidate for the vice-presidency on a 
Democratic ticket and one on the Greely ticket. That is all we have had 
in this way from the Democratic party of the United States. It is about 
all we have asked. 

When the battle is on upon whom do you most surely rely, to whom 
do you most confidently look to rally 'round the flags, upon whom do 
you most surely depend? The hosts that gather on the bosoms of the 
great States tributary to St. Louis — States that were lifted up out of the 
imperial domain which Thomas Jefferson gave to the Republic to shine as 
stars in the galaxy of the Union. 

We ask you now, gentlemen of the committee, to give us this conven- 
tion. We will entertain you as well as any other city, and we will afford 
you and afford the convention an opportunity to deliberate and reach 
conclusions absolutely free from outside pressure from those influences 
that are likely to make its results unfavorable to success. We will go as 
far as any when the battle is on to carry the flag to victory. We want 
success, and to attain success unity of the party should be the main pur- 
pose of our assembling together. I thank you for your attention. 



ADDRESS OF SENATOR GEORGE G. VEST, OF MISSOURI, 
On Behalf of The City of St. Louis. 

Mr. Chairman and Q entlemen of the Committee. After the eloquence, 
wit and humor which have preceded me, even with an exaggerated opin- 
ion of my own abilities as a speaker, I should hesitate to detain you 
beyond a reasonable time. My associates, who have presented the 
claims of St. Louis for the next convention, have so thoroughly and fairly 
established the ability of that city .to entertain the delegates if they 
assemble there that I shall spend no time in discussing that branch of 
the subject, nor will I indulge in any unjust criticisms of the three great 
cities which are rivals with St. Louis in the contest for this convention. 

Of all men living, I am the last who would say one word that had 
the suspicion of criticism of that splendid New York Democracy that has 
always stood firm. As I had occasion to say before at a similar meeting 



50 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

and time, I have no criticism to make against Tammany Hall because, 
whatever may have been its sins of omission or commission, the claws of 
the Tammany tiger are always red with the blood of the Republican 
party. (Applause.) 

It would be an absolute contradiction of the views of one of the elo- 
quent gentlemen who preceded me if I should for one instant insinuate 
that the presence of our convention would add to the commercial pros- 
perity of New York or to our political chances in the Empire State and 
Empire City of the Union. 

As to the City of Cincinnati, bound to St. Louis by so many com- 
mercial and social ties, I should be false to my people and myself if I 
expressed anything but the kindest feeling for her. (Applause.) 

This, however, is an occasion when we must speak plainly, as a 
gentleman from New York expressed it, in considering this question. It 
is said that the place where the Democratic Convention assembles is of 
no special importance and exerts no political influence. No soldier in 
actual war or in a political contest who ignores the slightest advantage 
in the fight is worthy of his commission or fit even to be a private in the 
ranks. It has been said that a farm house in the battle of Waterloo 
decided that contest and to this day to the tourist is pointed out the ruins 
of the chateau where the flowing and ebbing tide of battle rolled for hours 
and for the possession of which the French met the English and the 
Prussians in deadly conflict. A fence, a stone, an elevation of the ground, 
has often decided the fate of armies and it is so in political battles. A 
campaign song, the sobriquet given to a candidate, a chance shot of some 
partisan in the midst of the canvass, has often carried the day and decided 
the battle one way or the other. Blaine. was beaten for the presidency by 
the foolish speech of a preacher as all the world knows, and but for that 
imprudent utterance, he would have been President of the United States. 

When we are engaged in battle we must not disregard any single 
circumstance that helps to win. Men may laugh at sentiment, but the 
world is controlled by it; in politics, in religion, in state craft, in every 
department of business. Men have died for women, for a flower, and for 
a sweet smile have poured out their blood willingly and freely as the 
torrents that leap the mountain sides. We are told that the place of 
holding the convention may not effect the result of the canvass. You 
must not ignore the fact that in all the incidents and affairs of life 
" trifles light as air " may decide the fate of nations and of mankind. 

The City of Chicago, that splendid city upon the lakes, has derived 
world-wide reputation, as has been stated here, from the Columbian 
Exposition. It has been often honored in the past by both parties hold- 
ing their conventions there. Chicago would not be made greater by this 
convention. Chicago, like Cincinnati, as was stated by Col. Fellows, is 
in a hopelessly Republican State, if there is anything in the past by which 
to judge of in the future. But once since the war has Illinois ever given 
its electoral vote to a Democratic candidate and that was in the tidal wave 
of 1892. Ohio is hopelessly Republican. If the talent and resources of 
my friend, Calvin S. Brice, added to the aggressiveness of James E. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 51 

Campbell (with Ike Hill to manage the details of the canvass), could not 
succeed, if that combination could not win, what chance will there ever be 
for us to carry that State? 

Two things are urged agamst the city of St. Louis. I will consider 
them briefly: We are told in the first place, that climatic conditions are 
against this city. It has been described in the corridors and in this hall 
as the "Black hole of Calcutta," where we are parched, burned, fried and 
fricasseed. I have lived in Missouri more than forty years and I am only 
a reasonably fair specimen of the baked democrat. We are told that the 
water is bad there. Why bother any Democratic Convention Committee 
by complaining about water? (Laughter.) One would suppose from the 
attacks made upon the climatic conditions of St. Louis that delegates to 
the next convention are to be made out of either ice or wax and that they 
must not go to St. Louis lest they melt. I had supposed they were heroes, 
with iron in their blood and nerves of steel, willing to fight against the 
heat in summer and the cold in winter, and to carry the flag in all lat- 
itudes and in all dangers. 

W^e are told that the Democratic party should not live upon the 
crumbs which fall from the Republican table. Gentlemen, the Democ- 
racy of Alissouri ask at your hands nothing but the equality that should 
always exist between men belonging to the same political faith. We do 
not ask you to camp where the Republicans camped the year before. 
We are simply taking up the gauge of battle thrown down by Chauncey I. 
Filley, the great leader of the Republican party, who, in aggressive atti- 
tude stood where I stand now and shouted to the Republican Committee 
three weeks ago: " We've got them; we've got them." If you give us the 
convention I will be personally responsible for 20,000 Democratic majority 
in Missouri. Yes, he has got them. He has got them like the boy got the 
hornet when he screamed to his mother to come and take the infernal 
thing away. 

We do not ask any undue advantage or any special privileges in the 
way of partisan warfare from even the committee of our party. We ask 
to be put on an equality only. We do not desire to go back to our friends 
in Missouri and say in an apologetic way: " The Republican party 
gave the convention to St. Louis to help the Republican organization, 
but we were unable to obtain the same thing from our brethren in 
our own organization." We are Democrats, Democrats who have never 
faltered in the hour of peril and in the hour of battle. Missouri came into 
the Union in a state of revolution which threatened civil war. We were 
for long years engaged in a factional fight but always true to the flag of 
national Democracy. That internal conflict ended with the defeat of Col. 
Benton for Governor in 1856, Then came that terrible border warfare of 
1859 that bathed the people in blood and lit with fire the whole of that 
Western country. Then on top of that came the Civil war. Then five 
long years of dark proscription and persecution atthe hands of the Repub- 
lican party when they held us down with their bayonets. In 1870 we 
broke the manacles, and from that day to this the State flag of the 
Missouri Democracy has stood side by side with the great oriflamme of 



52 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

the National party to which we belong. These are the Democrats who are 
accused of coming here to pick up the crumbs from the Republican 
table. There is no fiercer animal on the face of the earth, not even except- 
ing the Tammany tiger, than the Missouri Democrat. We are ready to 
fight and we are not here imploring for anything. As Governor Stone 
said, we will win this fight. But is it wrong to ask our own brethren to 
put us on an equality with the Republicans when the legislature has a 
majority of twenty-one against us on joint ballot? Do you know what it 
means to lose Missouri? You expect to lose Illinois, you expect to lose 
Ohio, you may lose New York. When you lose Missouri you break that 
solid phalanx of Democratic States that have stood like a granite wall 
before the advance of the Republican cohorts. If you lose Missouri you 
break the center stone in the great Democratic arch, and you are in the 
hands of the Republican enemy for an indefinite time to come. We ask 
simply to be put on equality with the enemy, not on the vantage ground. 
If we claim the same influence with our committee which the Republi- 
cans had with theirs, is that picking up crumbs that fall from the Repub- 
lican table? 

Allusion has been made to the silver and gold question. We have in 
Missouri the two factions, but we have but one State Committee, one 
organization, and we will make together one fight. Governor Francis 
believes m the single gold standard, I believe in the free coinage of 
silver. But when the fight commences we will stand together like brothers, 
for we are all Democrats, if nothing else. What more can I say than 
this? What delegate here is willing to put personal interest in a time 
like this above the behest of our party? We are not here to beg; we are 
here to state facts. In conclusion I can simply say, as my immediate 
predecessor, Governor Stone, said, the Democracy of Missouri will do 
their duty; they will fight and they will win as they have won in the 
past. We will scatter Filley and his gang as a cyclone scatters the dust. 



The Chair : A recess of five minutes will now be taken, 
immediately after which the committee will meet again in 
executive session. Those who are not members of the com- 
mittee will kindly retire. Members of the Committee are 
requested to remain. 

(Five minutes recess.) 

The Chair : The meeting will be in order. The Secre- 
tary will proceed to call the roll, and as each State is called, 
the member, or proxy therefor, will announce the name of the 
city of his choice. The Secretary and the tellers are to keep a 
careful record of the vote. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio : I do not know what assurances 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 53 

have been received from the city of New York or the city of 
St. Louis, or the city of Chicago, as to what would be done if 
this Convention should be located at any of these places. If 
the chairman, or any member of the Committee has made suffi- 
cient examination to see that the propositions made will be 
entirely satisfactory to the Committee, I do not care to have 
them read. I do not know what propositions have been made 
by these cities. I speak with some experience in the matter, 
because in previous conventions we have had differences as to 
what the local committee has agreed to do. In one or two 
cases it has been necessary for the chairman of the National 
Committee to seriously consider the question whether he would 
not be obliged to recall the National Committee to consider 
the differences between the sub-committee appointed by the 
National Committee to manage the Convention, and the local 
committee in the Convention city. \ 

Representing one of the cities which desires to have this 
Convention I am prepared to make, on its behalf, certain well 
understood engagements, and I am prepared to obligate myself 
to the other members of this Committee that these engage- 
ments will be carried out in good faith, and that we will obey 
to the letter w^hat is understood between the parties ; but I am 
a little in doubt whether we ought to go into ballot, until it is 
understood what these cities agree respectively to do. I would 
not ask that the time of the Committee be taken up by a full 
reading, but if some gentleman would state in brief what is 
understood will be done in each case I think we would all be 
better prepared to vote. 

The Chair : Perhaps to submit the written communica- 
tions would be the best way to answer the inquiry. It is 
proper to say that the representatives of each city have signed 
and sent in similar communications, signed by gentlemen who 
are reputed to be quite able to fill their engagements and obli- 
gations. The names will all be furnished, if desired. The Sec- 
retary will kindly read the communication from the gentle- 
men representing the city of Chicago, as indicating what they 
are ready to do. 

The Secretary at this point read the communication from 
Chicago, which was in words and figures following : 



54 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

THE ARLINGTON. 

Washington, U. C, January 16, 1896. 
Hon. W. F. Harrity, 

Chairman, Democratic National Committee. 

Dear Sir: Desiring that the Democratic National Convention of 
1896 shall be held in the city of Chicago, in the State of Illinois, we do 
hereby agree and guarantee that in the event of said city of Chicago being 
selected for the meeting of said Convention, that to that end we will be 
responsible for the expenses of said Convention, to the extent of forty 
thousand dollars, and that there will, on or before March 1, 1896, be 
deposited to the credit of such sub-committee of the Democratic National 
Committee as may be appointed to make arrangements for said Conven- 
tion the sum of forty thousand ($40,000) dollars for the purpose of defray- 
ing ail of the expenses that it may be necessary or proper to incur m the 
judgment of said sub-committee, in connection with the usual and 
necessary arrangements for the meeting of the said convention, includmg 
the proper and usual expenses of the Democratic National Committee. 

It is understood and agreed that said sub-committee will furnish to 
the undersigned or to those duly authorized to act for them, sufficient 
and satisfactory vouchers for all expenditures made in connection with 
the meeting of the said Convention, and the attendance and meeting of 
the Democratic National Committee, etc., and will return to the under- 
signed the unexpended balance of the amount so deposited with such 

sub-committee. 

It is also understood and agreed that the arrangements for the meet- 
ing of said Convention and all matters properly incident thereto shall be 
made under the direct control and supervision of the sub-committee of the 
Democratic National Committee, it being understood and agreed that, if 
desired by the undersigned, ten per cent, of the spectators' tickets that 
may be issued for admission to the Convention Hall shall be given to the 
undersigned for distribution. 

It is further agreed that the undersigned will arrange with the 
proprietors of the leading hotels of the said city of Chicago that no allot- 
ment of headquarters, committee rooms, guest rooms, etc., shall be made 
until after the selection of rooms for the headquarters, committee rooms, 
etc., of the Democratic National Committee, shall have been made by the 
said sub-Committee of the Democratic National Committee, such selec- 
tion to be made not later than, say, thirty days from date hereof. It is 
likewise understood that the rates of charges to be made by hotels of the 
said city of Chicago shall be reasonable and moderate and not above the 
usual and regular rates of such hotels. Respectfully, 

L. Z. Leiter, 
Erskine M. Phelps, 
Joseph Donnersberger, 
Martin J. Russell, 
Adams A. Goodrich, 
Ben. T. Cable. 
Albert S. Gage, 
Benjamin J. Rosenthal 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 55 

The Chair : The communications from the other cities are 
of the same character. 

Mr. Brice, of Ohio : I had the impression the amount 
was different, in that it was $50,000. That had been my 
impression, as the way w^e made it. 

The Secretary : It was $50,000 originally, but was 
reduced to $40,000. 

Mr. Blair, of Kansas • Did I understand the Chair to say 
that the promises all were the same.^ In their speeches they 
were different. 

The Chair : In what particular .^^ Different in what par- 
ticular? 

Mr. Blair, of Kansas : Railroad fare. One or two of the 
gentlemen made the statement very different — and that they 
would claim none of the National Convention tickets. 

The Chair : It is parenthetically stated in each communi- 
cation that a percentage of the tickets would be given "if 
desired." 

The Secretary will read the signatures to the communica- 
tions from the cities of Cincinnati, New York and St. Louis. 

Which signatures were read to the Committee as follows : 

From Cincinnati : 

M. E. Ingalls, 
Thos. B. Saxon, 
H. D. Peck. 
John F. Follett, 
S. Howard Hinkle. 

From New York : 

IsiDOR Strauss, 
John D. Crimmins, 
Simeon Ford. 

From St. Louis : 

D. R. Francis, 

Samuel M. Kennard, . 

C. C. Maffitt, 

Charles D. McLure, 

C. C. Rainwater, 

W. H. Thompson, 

Chas. N. Knapp, 

L. M. Rumsey. 



56 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio : Of course I had no doubt in 
any case as to the signatures ; I had no reference to that. In 
the case of the proposition from the State of Ohio, however, 
I would like to ask for three minutes' delay while I consult 
w^ith the local committee of the city of Cincinnati. I would 
not like to have any difficulty arise. I do not dispute the 
authority of the Secretary to reduce this proposition, but I 
understand the people in our city of Cincinnati raised a fund 
of $50,000 and made a tender of it to this Committee. If the 
city of Cincinnati has seen fit to reduce it to $40,000 I have 
nothing to say about it, but I w^ould not wish that reduction 
to be made unless it is clearly understood by the Committee 
that they have withdrawn the extra $10,000 which they 
had offered. I do not say it would have any influence upon 
the deliberations of this body, but it may have some influence 
upon our own people. If I am not taxing the Committee too 
much, I would like to ask permission to consult with that 
Committee. I would not detain you more than three or four 
minutes. 

The Secretary : I would like to say, for the information 
of Mr. Brice and the Committee, when the other parties put 
their proposition down to $40,000, in order that they might all 
be uniform, I made known the fact to Mr. Ingalls, or rather 
suggested that they reduce theirs, to make it uniform, and he 
authorized me to make the reduction. 

Senator Brice, of Ohio: If you take the responsibility 
of tha^ statement, I withdravs^ my request. 

Mr. Cable, of Illinois : That was put to Mr. Ingalls. 
There were three others — the matter was put to Mr. Ingalls 
and he concurred. I would say as I w^as personally concerned, 
representing one of the cities, and being one of the Commit- 
tee, I was endeavoring to get as large an appropriation made 
as possible and not endeavoring to get them to reduce the 
amount. That would be my own feeling as a member of the 
Committee. The Convention of 1884, the amount expended 
was about $24,000 ; that of 1892 about the same amount of 
money. * * * They thought the sum might be reduced to 
$40,000. If you desire to see Mr. Ingalls, if they change it, 
if a change is going to be made in any place, we want 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 57 

The Secretary : I would like to say further that the 
original propositions were for the expenses of the Convention 
up to $50,000 ; they had agreed to pay the expenses up to 
,$50,000, if that sum should be required, but in no event more 
than the actual expenses of the Convention. 

Mr. Blair, of Kansas : Who is to determine what are the 
"Expenses in all these cases ? 

The Chair : The sub-Committee. Has the gentleman 
from Ohio withdrawn his request? 

Senator Brice, of Ohio: Yes, sir; with that under- 
standing. 

Mr. Sherley, of Kentucky: I would like to inquire if 
there is any guarantee about the building.? 

The Chair : The Chair understands it is to be paid for 
out of the fund subscribed or guaranteed. 

Gov. Sheehan, of New York : I desire to have, with the 
consent of the other gentlemen, Mr. Strauss, Mr. Crimmins, 
who is here, and Mr. Ford, it added to the New York proposi- 
tion, that if this. Committee selects New York as the place, 
that we will guarantee to carry the delegates and alternates to 
New York from their respective homes as cheaply as they 
could reach the nearest city to that locality that is an aspirant 
for the Convention. I desire to have that added to the prop- 
osition. 

The Chair : In justice to New York, as well as to the other 
cities named, I think it ought to be said, that this statement 
made by the representative of that city will not be considered 
as an additional offer. 

Gov. Sheehan : I do not desire to change the proposition 
we have made because we have all gone in on the same prop- 
osition, but I make it as an addition ; I simply give that guar- 
antee, and I wish it so understood. 

The Chair : The Secretary will proceed to call the roll. 

The Secretary then proceeded to call the roll for the selec- 
tion of the city in which the Convention should be held. 



58 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

first ballot. 

Chicago 6 

Cincinnati 11 

New York 14 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

SECOND BALLOT. 

Chicaigo 5 

Cincinnati , .' 9 

New York 17 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

THIRD BALLOT. 

Chicago 5 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 16 

St. lyouis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

FOURTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 4 

Cincinnati , .... .10 

New York 16 

St. Louis 20 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

FIFTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 5 

Cincinnati 11 

New York 16 

St. Louis. 18 

Whole number of votes cast 50 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 59 

A motion was made to take a recess until 9 o'clock p. 
M. An amendment to motion making the hour 8 :30 o'clock 
p. M. was offered. 

The amendment was accepted. 

A further motion to amend, naming 8 o'clock p. m., was 
offered and seconded. 

This amendment was lost. 

The motion to adjourn until 8:80 o'clock p. m. was put to a 
vote and carried. 

Recess until 8 :80 p. m. 



EVENING SESSION, 8 :80 P. M. 
EXECUTIVE SESSION. 

The Chair : Order, gentlemen. The Secretary will pro- 
ceed to call the roll. The sixth ballot is about to be taken. 

SIXTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 5 

Cincinnati 11 

New York 16 

St. Louis 18 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

SEVENTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 4 

Cincinnati 11 

New York 16 

St. Louis 20 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

On the sixth ballot, the Chair (W. F. Harrity) presented 
the proxy of Michael Doran and voted then and thereafter 
for Minnesota. 



60 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

eighth ballot. 

Chicago 5 

Cincinnati 12 

New York , 16 

St. Louis 18 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

NINTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 5 

Cincinnati 11 

New York 15 

St. Louis .20 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

TENTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 6 

Cincinnati 12 

New York 14 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

ELEVENTH BALLOT, 

Chicago 7 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 14 

St. Louis 20 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

TWELFTH BALLOT. 

Chicago " 

Cincinnati 1^ 

New York 1^ 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 51 



/"" 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 61 

thirteenth ballot. 

Chicago 8 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 15 

St. Louis 17 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

FOURTEENTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 1(3 

Cincinnati 9 

New York 13 

St. Louis 17 

Whole number of votes cast 49 

FIFTEENTH BALLLOT. 

Chicago 10 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 13 

St. Louis... 18 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

SIXTEENTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 10 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 13 

St. Louis 18 

Whole number of votes cast. 51 

SEVENTEENTH BALLOT. ^ 

Chicago 11 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 13 

St. Louis 17 

Whole number of votes cast 51 



62 . Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

eighteenth ballot. 

Chicago 11 

Cincinnati 9 

New York 12 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

Motion made to take a recess for one-half hour. This 
was followed by a motion to amend that after three more bal- 
lots shall have been taken, the city receiving the smallest 
number of votes shall be dropped from the roll. The amend- 
ment was not accepted, nor seconded. The question was put 
on the original motion to take a recess for half an hour and 
lost. 

NINETEENTH BALLOT. 



Chicago - 11 

Cincinnati 9 

New York 12 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 51 



TWENTIETH BALLOT. 

Chicago 13 

Cincinnati - 9 

New York : 11 

St. Louis 18 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

TWENTY-FIRST BALLOT. 

Chicago 15 

Cincinnati 9 

New York 8 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number votes cast 51 



Meeting, January 1G, 1896. 6S- 

TWENTY-SECOND BALLOT. 

Chicago 14 

Cincinnati 9 

Columbus 1 

New York 9 

St. Louis 18 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

TWENTY-THIRD BALLOT. 

Chicago 13 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 9 

St. Louis 18 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

TWENTY-FOURTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 15 

Cincinnati 10 

New York 7 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

TWENTY-FIFTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 15 

Cincinnati , 11 

New York 6 

St. Louis 19 

Whole number of votes cast 51 

TWENTY-SIXTH BALLOT. 

Chicago , 16 

Cincinnati 9 

New York , B 

St. Louis 20 

Whole number of votes cast 51 



64 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

twenty-seventh ballot. • 

Chicago 20 

Cincinnati 6 

New York 3 

St. Louis 21 

Whole number of votes cast 50 

TWENTY-EIGHTH BALLOT. 

Chicago 21 

Cincinnati ' 4 

New York 4 

St. Louis .22 

Whole number of votes cast 61 

TWENTY-NINTH BALLOT. 

Chicago .■ .26 

Cincinnati 1 

St. Louis 24 

Whole number of votes cast .61 

Mr. Ross, of New Jersey, changed his vote from New 
"York to St. Louis. 

Mr. Cummings, of Rhode Island, changed his vote from 
New York to Chicago. 

Mr. Donaldson, of South Carolina, changed his vote from 
Chicago to St. Louis. 

Mr. Terry, of Arkansas : I would like to have the tally 
verified : there has been some confusion. 

The Chair : The Secretary will verify the vote. 

The Secretary read aloud the vote of each State and Terri- 
tory as recorded on the tally sheet, and the result as previously 
announced was verified. 

The Chair : Chicago having received a majority of all 
the votes cast, I declare it to be the choice of this Committee 
for holding the next Democratic National Convention. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 65 

Mr. Thomas : I desire that the following Official Call be 
adopted — it is similar to the Call which was issued in 1892, 
namely : 



CALL FOR THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL CON- 
VENTION, 1896. 

The Democratic National Committee, at a meeting held 
this day in the City of Washington, D. C, has appointed 
Tuesday July 7, 1896, as the time, and chosen the City of 
Chicago, Illinois, as the place for holding the Democratic 
National Convention. Each State is entitled to representa- 
tion therein equal to double the representation to which it is 
entitled in the next Electoral College, and each Territory and 
the District of Columbia shall have two delegates. All Dem- 
ocratic conservative citizens of the United States, irrespective 
of past associations and differences, who can unite with us in 
the effort for pure, economiical and constitutional government, 
are cordially invited to join in sending delegates to the Con- 
vention." 

I move that it be adopted as the Official Call for the Con- 
vention. 

This motion was duly seconded. 

The Chair '. In view of the resolution adopted this morn- 
ing, the Chair will regard the motion just made as a direction 
or request to the officers of the Committee, inasmuch as a 
request to prepare the Official Call was incorporated in the 
resolution offered this morning by the gentleman from Mary- 
land, which resolution was adopted. 

Mr. Owen, of Indian Territory : At the last meeting of 
the Democratic National Convention, the declaration was 
made on behalf of Arizona and New Mexico that they should 
have a representation of six. The Convention adopted that 
before, and we think it should be embodied in this call. The 
motion was passed at the previous Convention declaring that 
the same representation should be given at the succeeding Con- 
vention as obtained during the last. 



66 Meeting, January 16, 1896. 

The motion of Mr. Thomas, of Colorado, adopting the 
Official Call, having been duly seconded, was put to a vote and 
carried. 

Mr. Donaldson, of South Carolina : I think it is a very- 
opportune time for this Committee to set a good example to its 
constituency, and perhaps to show that, although we have had 
a little fight amongst ourselves, we are ready to present a united 
front against a common enemy, I therefore move that we make 
the decision for Chicago unanimous. 

Which motion was warmly seconded by Mr. Prather, ot 
Missouri, put to a vote and carried. 

Mr. Wallace, of Washington : I move that the thanks 
of this Committee be tendered to the proprietor of the Arling- 
ton Hotel for the courtesies extended during our stay here. 

Which motion, duly seconded, was put to a vote and carried. 

Mr. Sherley, of Kentucky : It occurs to me that as our 
Convention will be later than usual, it would not be out of 
place that our Committee suggest and recommend to our suc- 
cessors that instead of wasting two weeks and traveling to 
New York for the purpose of electing a Chairman and Secre 
tary that they do that the day after the Convention meets. 
This is just simply a recommendation. Is it not customary 
for the Committee to meet the day before the meeting of the 
Democratic National Convention.? 

The Chair : The Chair will take the responsibility of 
calling the National Committee to meet on the day before the 
Convention at Chicago ; but will of course be governed by the 
wishes of the Committee. 

Mr. Sherley : I move that when we adjourn we adjourn 
to meet at 12 o'clock, noon, on the day before the assembling 
of the Democratic National Convention, at such place in Chi- 
cago as may be designated by the Chairman. 

Which motion, duly seconded, was put and carried. 

Mr. Thomas, of Colorado : I move that a copy of the 
resolution of recommendation that was adopted this morning. 



Meeting, January 16, 1896. 67 

recommending six delegates from the territories, be furnished 
by the Secretary to each of the members of the National Com- 
mittee from the Territories. 

Which motion was duly seconded, put to a vote and carried. 

The chair announced the appointment of the following 
members of the sub-Committee, authorized under the resolu- 
tion offered by Senator Gorman, of Maryland, to make 
arrangements for the meeting of the Democratic National 
Convention in Chicago, Illinois, on Tuesday, July 7, 1896, 
viz : William F. Harrity, of Pennsylvania, Simon P. Sheerin, 
of Indiana, Arthur P. Gorman, of Maryland, Ben T. Cable, 
of Illinois, Edward C. Wall, of Wisconsin, John G. Prather, 
of Missouri, and Thomas H. Sherley, of Kentucky. 

Senator Gorman, of Maryland, asked to be excused from 
service upon the Committee and Hon. Hugh C. Wallace, of 
Washington, was appointed in his place. 

Adjournment. 



Meeting, July 6, 1896. 68« 

DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE MEETING. 



Parlors Palmer House, Chicago, III., July 6, 1896. 

The National Committee met in the parlors of the Palmer 
House, Chicago, 111., pursuant to adjournment, at 12 o'clock 
M., July 6, 1896, Hon. William F. Harrity, of Pennsyl- 
vania, Chairman, presiding, and Hon. Simqn P. Stteekin, of 
Indiana, Secretary, recording. 

The following is a roll of the members and proxies 
present : 



Alabama— Henry D. Clayton. 
Arkansas— T. V. McRea. 

(Proxy for U. M. Rose.) 
California — M. F. Tarpey. 
Colorado— Charles S. Thomas. 
Connecticut— Carlos French. 
Delaware — L. C. Vandegrift. 
Florida— Samuel Pasco. 
Georgia — Clark Howell, Jr. 
Idaho— D. B. Hilliard. 

(Proxy for F. W. Beane.) 
Illinois— Ben. T. Cable. 
Indiana — Simon P. Sheerin. 
Iowa — J. J. Richardson. 
Kansas — C, W. Blair. 
Kentucky — Thos. H. Sherley. 
Maine — Arthur Sewall. 
Maryland — L. V. Baughman. 

(Proxy for A. P. Gorman.) 
Massachusetts — Josiah Ouincy. 
Michigan — Daniel J. Caaipau. 
Minnesota — D. W. Lawler. 

(Proxy for Michael Doran.] 
Mississippi— C. B. Howry. 
Missouri — John G. Prather. 
Montana — A. J. Davidson. 
Nebraska — Tobias Castor. 
Nevada — R. P. Keating. 
New Hampshire — A. W. Sullo- 

WAY. 

New Jersey — James Smith, Jr. 
(Proxy for Miles Ross.) 

Senator Jones, of Arkansas, Senator Turpie, of Indiana, 
Governor Altgeld, of Illinois, Governor Stone, of Missouri, 
and Senator Daniel, of Virginia, appeared before the com- 
mittee, stating through Senator Jones, their spokesman, that 
they were authorized by the delegates to the Convention, in 
favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver, at the ratio 
of 16 to 1, to request the National Committee, in its selection 
of a Temporary Chairman, to regard the \vishes of what they 
believed to be a majority of the delegates to compose the 



New York — W, F. Sheehan, 

North Carolina— F, H. Busbee. 
(Proxy for M. W. Ransom.) 

North Dakota — W. C. Leistikow. 

Ohio— George B. Gilliland. 
(Proxy for C. S. Brice.) 

Oregon — Fred V. Holman. 
(Proxy for E. D. McKee.) 

Pennsylvania — William F. Har- 
rity. 

Rhode Island — R. B. Comstock. 
(Proxy for Samuel R. Honey.) 

South Carolina — M. L. Donald- 
son. 

South Dakota — James M. Woods. 

Tennessee — Holmes Cummins. 

Texas — O. T. Holt. 

Utah — S. A. Merritt. 

Vermont — Bradley B. Smalley. 

Virginia — Peter J. Otey. 

Washington — Hugh C. Wallace. 

W^est Virginia — John Sheridan. 

Wisconsin — W. F. Vilas. 
(Proxy for E. C. W^all.) 

Wyoming — W. L. Kuykendall. 

Alaska — A. L. Delaney. 

Arizona — C. M. Shannon. 

District of Columbia — J. L. Norris. 

New Mexico — H, B. Ferguson. 

Oklahoma — T. M. Richardson. 

Indian Territory — Ror't L. Owen. 



683 Meeting, Juey 6, 1896. 

Convention, and select for Temporary Chairman some gentle- 
man of well known silver views, whose name would be pre- 
sented by a member of the National Committee in sympathy 
w^ith the free silver movement. 

On motion of Mr. Prather, of Missouri, seconded by 
Mr. Blair, of Kansas, the committee proceeded to the work 
of making up the temporary roll of the Convention. 

Upon motion of Mr. Cable, of Illinois, seconded by Mr. 
Smalley, of Vermont, it w^as ordered that where but one set 
of delegates were reported from a State, that the same should 
be placed on the roll without further action. 

The roll was called without interruption until Indiana was 
reached, when the Secretary reported that there was a contest 
in the 7th Congressional District, the contestants being John 
P. Frenzel and Chart<es M. Cooper. Both parties ap- 
peared in person and by attorneys, and after argument and 
full consideration the Secretary was instructed by unanimous 
vote to put the name of Charles M. Cooper upon the roll. 

When Michigan was reached, Hon. Daniel J. Campau, 
member fro ^T Michigan, moved that the delegates from the 
State of Michigan, headed by Hon. Elliott G. Stevenson, 
be stricken from the roll, and that the determination of who 
were the regular delegates from that State be left entirely to 
the Committee on Credentials. In answer to an inquiry as to 
whether any other list of delegates had been filed, the Secre- 
tary replied that no other list had been filed wnth him, and 
that he knew of no delegation from Michigan, except the one 
headed by Hon. Elliott G. Stevenson, the credentials of 
which delegation were now upon his desk. Mr. Campau's 
motion was lost. Mr. Sheridan, of West Virginiji, moved 
that the delegation headed by Hon. Elliott G. Stevenson, 
be placed on the temporary roll, which motion was seconded 
by Mr. Sulloway, of New Hampshire. Hon. Daniel J. 
Campau, member from Michigan, asked that the roll be called 
on said motion, which was done, and said roll-call resulted in 
every member present, except Mr. Campau, voting aye ; Mr. 
Campau voted no. The motion was carried. 

When Nebraska was reached, the Secretary reported 
two delegations — one headed by Hon. Tobias Castor and 
the other by Hon. W^ivi. J. Bryan. Representatives of each 
delegation, and attorneys for each, were adaiitted. After 
long and exhaustive argument, the committee, by majority 
vo'e, instructed the Secretary to place upon the temporary 
roll the delegation headed by Hon. Tobias Castor. 

When Nevada was reached, the Secretary reported two 
delegations — one headed by Gen. R. P. Keating and the 
other by Theodore Winters. After argument and full 
consideration, the Secretary was directed by unanimous vote 



Meeting, July 6, 1896. 68c 

to pUice upon the temporary roll the delegation headed by 
Gen. R. P. Keating. 

When Ohio was reached, the Secretary reported two sets 
of delegates, for the 18th Congressional district, to-vvit : No. 
1, John H. Clark and Edward S. Raff ; No. 2, Wilson 
S. Potts and Conrad Scweitzer. The parties were pres- 
ent in person and b}^ attorney, and after argument and full 
consideration the roll was called and by a majority vote the 
Secretary was instructed to place the names of Wilson S. 
Potts and Conrad Scweitzer upon the temporary roll. 

When the State of South Dakota was reached, the Secre- 
tary reported two delegations — one headed by V. Sebiakin- 
Ross, and the other by F. M. Stover. Members of the 
respective delegations were present in person, and represented 
by attorneys. After argument and full consideration the Sec- 
retary was instructed by unanimous vote to place upon the 
temporary roll the delegation headed by F, M. Stover. 

When Texas was reached, the Secretary reported two del- 
egations — one headed by Hon. J. W. Bailey, and the other 
by Hon. George Clark. Before any action w^as taken by 
the Committee, the delegation headed by Mr. Clark was 
withdrawn and the contest abandoned. The Secretary v^as 
directed by unanimous vote to place the delegation headed by 
Hon. J. W. Bailey on the temporary roll. 

There were no further contests and the Secretary was 
instructed to make up the temporary roll of the Convention in 
accordance ^vith the above action of the Committee. 

The Chair then declared the next thing in order to be the 
selection of Temporary Officers for the Convention. 

Hon. William F. Sheehan, of New York, presented the 
name of Senator David B. Hill, of New York, and Hon. 
Henky D. Clayton, of Alabama, presented the name of 
Senator John W. Daniel, of Virginia. The roll being called 
the members voted as follows : 

Alabama — Henry D. Clayton Daniel 

Arkansas — T. V. McRea (Proxy for U. M. Fose.) Daniel 

California— M. F. Tarpey Daniel 

Colorado — Charles S. Thomas Daniel 

Connecticut — Carlos French Hill 

Delaware — L. C. Vandegrift Hill 

Florida — Samuel Pasco Daniel 

Georgia — Clark Howell, Jr Daniel 

Idaho — B. N. Hilliard (Proxy for F. W. Beane.) Daniel 

Illinois — Ben. T. Cable Hill 

Indiana — Simon P. Sheerin Hill 

Iowa — J. J. Richardson .' Hill 

Kansas—C. W. Blair Daniel 

Kentucky —Thomas H. Sherley Hill 

Louisiana — James Jeffries Absent 

Maine— Arthur Sewall Daniel 



68^ Meeting, July 6, 1896. 

Maryland— L. V. Baughman (Proxy for A. P. Gorman). Hill 

Massachusetts— JosiAH Quincy Hill 

Michigan— Daniel J. Campau Daniel 

Minnesota— D. W. Lawler (Proxy for Michael Doran).Hill 

Mississippi— C. B. Howry Hill 

Missouri— John G. Prather Hill 

Montana— A. J. Davidson Daniel 

Nebraska— Tobias Castor Hill 

Nevada— R. P. Keating Daniel 

New Hampshire— A. W. Sulloway Hill 

New Jersey— James Smith, Jr. (Proxy for Miles Ross). Hill 

New York— William F. Sheehan Hill 

North CaroHna— F. H. Busbee (Proxy for M. W. Ransom). Daniel 

North Dakota— W. C. Leistikow Daniel 

Ohio — George B. Gilliland (Proxy for C. S. Brice). .Hill 
Oregon— Fred V. Holman (Proxy for E. D. McKee). .Hill 

Pexinyslvania— Wm. F. Harrity Hill 

Rhode Island— R. B. Comstock (Proxy for Samuel R. 

Honey) , Hill 

South Carolina— M. L. Donaldson Daniel 

South Dakota— James M. Woods Hill 

Tennessee— Holmes Cummins Hill 

Texas— O. T. Holt Hill 

Utah — S. A. Merritt Daniel 

Vermont — Bradley B. Smalley Hill 

Virginia— Peter J. Otey Daniel 

Washington — Hugh C. Wallace Hill 

West Virginia — John Sheridan Hill 

Wisconsin — W. F. Vilas (Proxy for E. C. Wall) Hill 

Wyoming^ — W. L. Kuykendall . , Daniel 

Alaska — A. L. Delaney Hill 

Arizona — C. M. Shannon Daniel 

District of Columbia — J. L. Norris Daniel 

New Mexico — H. B. Ferguson Daniel 

Oklahoma — T. M. Richardson Daniel 

Indian Territory — Robert L. Owen Daniel 

Recapitulation. — Hill, 27 ; Daniel, 28 ; total, 50. Neces- 
sary to a choice, 26. 

The Chairman declared that Senator Hill, having received 
the majority of the votes, was the choice of the Committee for 
Temporary Chairman of the Convention. 

On motion of Hon. Charles S. Thomas, of Colorado, 
seconded by A. W. Sulloway, of New Hampshire, Hon. 
Simon P. Sheerin, of Indiana, was unanimously selected as 
Temporary Secretary of the Convention. 

On motion of Col. John G. Prather, of Missouri, sec- 
onded by Hon. T. H. Sherley, of Kentucky, Col. John I. 
Martin, of Missouri, was unanimously elected Temporary 
Sergeant-at-Arms of the Convention. 

On motion of Hugh C. Wallace, of Washington, sec- 
onded by Hon. Clark Howell, of Georgia, the Temporary 
vSecretary was empowered to select such Assistant Secretaries 
and Reading Clerks as he might require. 

There being no further business the meeting adjourned. 








-<:ff^ /rf 




72 Official Proceedings of the 

July 7, 1896. 
To the Democratic National Convention : The under- 
signed members of the Democratic National Committee, 
respectfully recommend that the name of the Hon. John W. 
Daniel, of Virginia, be substituted in the Committee report 
for that of the Hon. David B. Hill, of New York, and that 
the Hon. John W. Daniel be chosen Temporary Chairman 
of this Convention. 

Henry D. Clayton, Ala. F. H. Busbee, North Carolina. 
Thomas C. McRae, Ark. Wm. C. Leistikow, N.Dakota. 

Michael F. Tarpey, Cal. M. L. Donaldson, South Car. 
C. S. Thomas, Colorado. P. J. Otey, Virginia. 

Samuel Pasco, Florida. J. M. Burton, Utah. 

Clark Howell, Georgia. W. L. Kuykendall, Wyo. 
Barry N. Hillard, Idaho. C. M. Shannon, Arizona. 

C. W. Blair, Kansas. J. L. Norris, Dist. Columbia. 
Arthur Sew^all, Maine. H. B. Ferguson, New Mex. 

D. J. Campau, Michigan. F. M. Richardson, Oklahoma. 
A. J. Davidson, Montana. Robert L. Owen, Indian Ter. 
R. P. Keating, Nevada. 

I therefore move that the minority recommendation of the 
Committee be adopted; and that the Hon. John W. Daniel, 
of Virginia, be chosen Temporary Chairman of this Conven- 
tion. Upon that proposition, I demand a vote by States and 
ask for a roll call. 

Hon. Chas. S. Thomas, of Colorado : I desire to second 
the minority substitute. 

The Chair : The Chair will state the question. The 
gentleman from Alabama moves to substitute the name of 
Hon. John W. Daniel, of Virginia, in place of Hon. 
David B. Hill, of New York, for Temporary Chairman of 
the Convention. (Prolonged applause and temporary confu- 
sion.) It may as well be understood that so long as the present 
incumbent is in the chair these proceedings will be conducted 
in a regular and orderly manner. The Chair recognizes the 
gentleman from Connecticut, Hon. Thomas M. Waller. 

Hon. Thomas M. Waller : Mr. Chairman : I will give 
way for the gentleman from New^ Jersey, who desires to make 
a statement. 



Democratic National Convention. 78 

The Chair : The chair recognizes Hon. Allen L. Mc- 
Dermott, of New Jersey. 

Mr. McDermott : Mr. Chairman and Democrats : Rep- 
resenting the Democracy of a Union in which we hope, after 
the work of this convention shall have been completed, there 
will be but one banner and that the one under which every 
Democrat in the nation can march, head up, proudly on to 
victory, I rise to pay a tribute from the only State north of the 
Mason and Dixon line that has never failed to record its elec- 
toral vote for the candidates of the National Democratic Con- 
vention. A representative of the sentiment of that State I 
desire to pay the tribute of love and respect of the State of 
New Jersey to the Hon. John W. Daniel, of Virginia, but 
to ask that this Convention give its support to the majority 
resolutions of the National Committee, placing in the tem- 
porary chairmanship that man who gave us the legend under 
w^hich in the days of trouble in our Eastern Democracy we 
sailed; that man who electrified this nation by giving us a 
legend which every Democrat can put upon the banner he fol- 
lowed ; who echoed the sentiment that had no East, no South, 
no North, no West in it, but simply a declaration of faith, "I 
am a Democrat." 

Standing beneath the portrait of the grandest man who 
ever wrote the word liberty (alluding to Jefferson) I would be 
false to the spirit of that liberty if I did not believe that on 
all occasions a Democratic body had the right, by its majority, 
to select any one whom it chooses to preside over it. But we 
are here in response to precedent ; we are here because it is 
our custom every four years to meet and deliberate. If it 
shall be that when we have adjourned from this convention 
there be in its declaration of principles a plank novel within 
Democratic declarations, will not that be sufficient introduc- 
tion of novelty in the campaign .f* 

We understand that the duties of a temporary chairman 
have for the entire existence of the Democratic party been 
imposed upon the one selected by the National Committee. 
Why, then, if the one selected by the National Committee 
comes from a section of the country not entirely in sympathy 
with some proposed declaration of principles, should there be 



74 Official Proceedings of the 

a violation of tradition? Why send it out — you will have the 
majority in this Convention, you whose right to rule the Con- 
vention is recognized by a minority — why send it out that this 
Convention started in its advocacy of a principle that you 
propose to put in your platform, in the mere matter of select- 
ing a Temporary Chairman, departed from the principles that 
have governed every Democratic Convention since Democ- 
racy assembled in Convention to represent the Democratic 
party of the country? Let me appeal to your reason. I 
want, as does every Democrat in the North, to support the 
actions of this Convention, every one. We of the North are 
maligned if it is alleged that the Democracy of the North 
does not desire the substantial prosperity and happiness of 
every quarter ot the Union ; for whenever there has been 
assault upon that prosperity, none has so quickly jumped to 
the rescue and protection of that section as the Democracy of 
the North. 

Don't begin your Convention by violating a tradition. 
Don't begin your Convention by violating a rule. If you 
have the strength of giants use it, not as giants do, but 
reserve that strength and all the spirit that is in it for the 
battle that will come in November. You have not, even in 
the moment of exultation, because of a majority in this 
assembly, any reasonable right to attack the minority by set- 
ting aside traditional rule. We pay the tribute of respect to 
the candidate selected by the minority of the committee, but 
we say that tradition is in favor in a Democratic convention 
of abiding by the rule of the majority; for that is what the 
majority of this Convention is going to ask the Democrats of 
this country to do at the election. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, we ask of those who represent that 
sentiment which will undoubtedly be incorporated in the 
platform, that they do not make the avenue of incorporation 
offensive to those Democrats of this nation w^ho disagree with 
them, and we ask the majority to meet the minority in the 
spirit of reverence for Democratic precedent. Do this and thy 
gentleness shall make thee great. 

The Chairman recognized Ho«. Thomas M. Waller, 



Democratic National Convention. 75 

of Connecticut, who took the platform and addressed the 
Convention as follows: 

Mr. Waller : Mr. Chairman and Fellow Democrats : 
It will be no fault of mine if I detain you with the remarks I 
propose to submit for your consideration for more than five 
minutes; and we all start agreeing, I think, in the first 
remark I have to make. There are no abler men, there are 
no braver Democrats than the two whose names are involved 
in this preliminary discussion. They may be named together 
and they should be cheered together, and they should be 
called together in a Democratic Convention : David B. Hill, 
of New York ; and John W. Daniel, of Virginia. Fellow 
Democrats, one is a candidate according to the immemorial 
usage of your party for this position, and the other is a candi- 
date by the exercise of a power never before invoked, and as a 
substitute candidate. 

What ought the Convention to do about it ? (A voice 
" Elect Daniel.") I agree with the gentleman who squeaked 
out that honored name, you ought to elect him. Now, hear my 
suggestion. You ought to elect David B. Hill as your tem- 
porary chairman, and every man in this audience, 16 to 1, or 
1 to 16, ought to vote for him, and then you ought to elect Sen- 
ator Daniel the permanent chairman. (A voice from the 
Michigan delegation : "We have got another man for that.") 
I will vouch for it that every man in this Convention whom 
I assume especially to represent will vote for Daniel and 
cheer for Daniel so that the reverberation of that cheer will 
be heard in Virginia. 

Gentlemen, what is there to prevent it ? Are there some 
other arrangements made ? Wipe them out; be equal to the 
emergency. Have your Daniel of the South ; have your Hill 
of the East. Disappoint your enemies by doing the courteous, 
the chivalrous, the judicious thing at the very opening of your 
Convention. Fellow Democrats, when I came from Connect- 
icut the Republicans told me that we were going to a Con- 
vention where we would receive no courtesy, where we would 
receive no consideration, where we would be trampled upon 
sixteen men to one, and we should be the underneath ones. 
I told them, and I believe it to-day, we shall receive no such 



76 Official Proceedings of the 

treatment. We may be disappointed in the platform that 
they will adopt; we may be disappointed in the candidate 
they put in nomination, but we will return to the East with 
the story that while we were beaten, because they had more 
votes than we had, still we received every courtesy from 
Democrats. We received the hospitality of the West from the 
Western Democrats, and we received the chivalrous action of 
the South from the Southern Democrats. 

Fellow Democrats, we can stand your beating us w^ith 
votes; we can stand any candidate that you will nominate, for 
you will nominate an honest man. We are in this Convention 
to stay. I am going to be here, and if every Eastern man bolts 
I will stay h^re w^ith the janitor and cheer the last one out. 
You cannot drive us out of this Convention by the exercise of 
power. I will tell you what you can do, and I will tell you 
in a minute. In the name of common sense, fellow Demo- 
crats who differ with me on the issue of issues, let me ask you, 
if you have got two to one in this Convention against us, as I 
suppose you have, w^hat are you afraid of } Are there any 
two men down there afraid of me ? I am just as good a 
fighter as there is in the gold section of this place; I will fight 
as hard and fight as long. Now, if you are not afraid of me, 
why are you afraid of my associates ? What will the Repub- 
lican party say if you violate your traditions at the very open- 
ing of your Convention ? One of two things they will say — 
that you did it because you were afraid of us; and the other 
thing they will say will be still worse ; they will say you did it 
not because you were afraidof us, but because you glory in heap- 
ing upon the East personal indignites. (Cries of "No, no, 
no.") You say no, but you are asked to do it. 

Fellow Democrats, whom are you supposed to turn down 
in vindicating Daniel? Who is he.? Who is he.? He is a man 
who has voted for the Democracy and never against the inter- 
ests of the people since he first voted. More than that, he 
has fought for the Democracy since he has first voted; and 
more than that, he has fought successfully. More than that, 
he has fought against criticism and the insults of Repub- 
licans ; he has fought without the approval of Mugwumps, 
and without the aid of patronage or power. He has fought 
alone. Turn him down in a Democratic convention? In 



Democratic National Convention. 77 

God's name, if you turn him down, for what ? Afraid of him ? 
Do you think you will stop any Democrat, from North, South 
or East, from making a speech in this Convention, expressing 
his views? Do you think you will stop David B. Hill from 
making a speech? Never, never. The speech he will make 
to you upon the platform will be, as you can all prophesy, a 
quiet, conservative and statesmanlike speech that becomes 
the position. He will know the position, and that he is the 
organ and officer of both sides as your Temporary Chairman. 
Let that speech go to the public, and, gentlemen, stop his 
doing it — stop his doing it, and that speech that he makes 
from the floor and that goes to the people, with what enthu- 
siasm will it be received. The indignity you put upon him 
will add to his honor. In God's name, think of this with 
reason, and with sense, before you impose on the East this 
indignity. 

Gentlemen, you are going to do it, you will do it, will you? 
(Cries of "Yes, yes," and "No, no.") You will do it, will 
you? Listen a minute. I want to say one word to you about 
the Eastern Democrats. We will stand everything from a 
Democrat — very little from a Republican — but we are not 
worms. My Southern and Western friends, some of you know 
it. We are not worms, and if we were, worms sometimes turn 
against you. Treat us badly, as you mean to do, but as you 
ought not to do; insult us by breaking the traditions of your 
party; turn down David B. Hill, as indiscreet men would 
advise you, and I will tell you just what we will do. There 
is no threat about it. We will do this : We will fight you for 
your indignities and insults. In Southern phrase, we will 
fight you here and elsewhere, and we will fight you until you 
are sorry for your indiscretion of this day. ( Confusion, cries, 
noise, etc.) 

Gentlemen, I will finish what I have to say — if I have the 
right to do so — if I stay here all summer. And all I have to 
say in leaving you is this : This is the grand old party of my 
life ; I love it as I love my family, and I regret an unwise 
action that may harm the party, almost as badly, I believe, as 
one that might bring disaster to the country. Now, this is the 
feeling of at lea^t one-third of this Convention in the minority. 
I ask you to consider that feeling. Let us act together in the 



78 Official Proceedings of the 

preliminary proceedings, and let us stand together in the Demo- 
cratic pdrty, that party that has stood by the people and fought 
for them since the birth of the Republic, and I trust in God 
that nothing will be done here to prevent its continuing to do 
so while the Republic lasts. 

The Chairman recognized the gentleman from Colorado, 
Hon. Charles S. Thomas. 

Mr. Thomas : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Democratic National Convention : I shall not detain you 
long in saying something on behalf of the minority of the 
Democratic National Convention, and I would say nothing 
but for the speech of the distinguished gentleman who has just 
taken his seat. You are told that the majority of this Con- 
vention, over-riding precedent and disturbing tradition, pro- 
poses by revolutionary methods to force upon this Convention 
an unheard of procedure. I desire to call your attention to the 
fact that although in the past history of the Democratic 
National Conventions there have been no minority reports, 
nevertheless it is a fact that that which the Committee does 
is simply a recommendation to be adopted or rejected, as the 
Convention may decide to do. 

And a convention which has the power to adopt, necessa- 
rily, if it sees fit to exercise it, has the power to reject. We 
have no desire whatever to extinguish discussion or to sup- 
press debate ; but I will say to my friend from Connecticut 
that when he left his home in connection with other dis- 
tinguished Easterners, the papers, through the Associated Press, 
declared that their purpose was to come to this Convention 
and capture it without yielding an inch to any one ; we felt 
that a duty was consequently imposed upon the members of 
the National Committee to carry out, as far as possible, what 
we conceived to be the wish of the assembled majority of the 
delegates of the Democracy of the Union. We knew that the 
Committee, if constituted to represent that sentiment, would 
have reported in favor of John W. Daniel, of Virginia. 

My friend asks what the Republicans will say of our action. 
Democrats who have fought in the West, as I have for 
twenty-five years, have long ago become indifferent to what 
Republicans say. But we do know that if precedents were 



Democratic National Convention. 79 

necessary, they furnished us one by their own action in this 
magnificent city in 1880, and those who are so fearful of 
Republican public opinion ought to pay some deference to 
Republican precedents. 

My friends, I desire to repel the charge that the Democrats 
of the United States desire to inflict indignity and disgrace 
upon the senior senator of New York. Nothing can be fur- 
ther from our intention. I recall that four years ago I stood 
in the Convention as his friend, while his new found friends 
declared him to be unworthy of the respect of a Democratic 
Convention. I stood here with others asking a hearing for 
his advocates, which hearing was denied by the very men 
who say to-day that he should preside over this Convention. 
I say with my whole heart God bless him. (Cries of 
*' Amen.") I hope to see him in this campaign with us. If 
we are to judge his future by his past, his utterances upon the 
great question which now confronts us will warm the hearts 
of the free coinage men of the West. 

Now, my fellow citizens, every speaker who has preceded 
me upon this platform has declared, one of them pointing to 
the portrait of the immortal Washington, which looks down 
in benediction upon us. (At this point the speaker was 
interrupted by laughter and was informed that the picture he 
referred to was Jefferson and not Washington.) Well, 
Washington is a good name in a Democratic convention, 
anyhow. They are both immortal Democratic names. They 
have said, and they have said truly, that it is a matter for the 
majority to determine. 

Now, my fellow citizens, why did we take this action ? 
One word more and I am through. We took this action 
because we have been told in the public prints of this and 
other cities where we have no voice, and through which we 
cannot be heard, where everything we do seems to be misrep- 
resented, for the purpose, I presume, of creating improper 
impressions, we were told that your purpose was to assume 
control of this Convention, if possible, and w^e made up our 
minds that if the battle must come the sooner it came the 
better. And, if, as a matter of fact, we are acting within the 
line erf Democratic precedent, so far as majorities are con- 
cerned, then I submit to the calm and deliberate judgment of 



80 Official Proceedings of the 

this Convention whether they, and they alone, are not to 
determine who shall be their presiding officer. I appeal to 
you, fellow delegates, to stand by the minority report. Let 
it not be said that in the first skirmish the pickets which you 
yourselves threw out were driven back into the lines. I ask 
you to adopt the mainrity substitute upon this question. 

The Chair recognized Hon, C. E. Waller, of Alabama. 

Mr. Waller : Gentlemen of the Convention : I come 
from a state where a Democrat casts his first vote without a 
scratch from top to bottom, and his proudest legacy as he 
passes away is that that was his whole life's work. Twenty- 
five years ago I began my career as a Democrat by honoring 
these, our Eastern brother Democrats, and I come here now 
to say to them that we do not propose to take any action 
which would look like casting a reflection upon them. 

It is a misconstruction of our purpose. We have given 
the great state of New York every Democratic candidate for 
the last twenty-five years. I came here four years ago to this 
great city fighting as hard as I could for the gentleman that is 
now proposed for Temporary Chairman of this Convention, 
and I did not take very pleasant medicine when another of 
New York's honored sons was nominated over him. 

I stand here now to say to you we have nothing but the 
highest regard and respect for him. We have the highest 
regard and respect for all of the Eastern Democrats of our 
party. We have given them every important nomination for 
the last twenty-five years. Haven't the Western and South- 
ern Democrats stood squarely by you? Now, then, I want to 
know why the creature of the Democratic party — not the 
party itself, nothing but the Executive Committee — I ^vant to 
know why that Executive Committee, recognizing the great 
voice of the majority of the people, did not recognize it in its 
report? I want to understand how the creature became above 
the master. I want to know why you gentlemen did not do 
like we do in my country when we find we have lost a battle 
— let the majority have all the management of the campaign, 
its platform and its officers ? And I want to say to our East- 
ern friends that, if I read his story aright, in 1812 the whole 
of Europe marched with Napoleon, and in 1813 they marched 



Democratic National Committee. 81 

against him. We have been your friends for twenty-five 
years, voted for every candidate you put up, and when called 
upon to do it again we ^vill. I say this to sho^v we liave no 
want of courtesy in this matter, and to tell you we think we 
are entitled to this nomination and the Committee ought to 
have given it to us. 

The Chairman presented Hon. M. F. Tarpey, of Cali- 
fornia. 

Mr. Tarpey : Gentlemen of the Convention : I do not 
intend to detain you at the outside over three minutes. There 
is one point that has not been discussed by any gentleman 
who has been on his feet. I want to explain to this Conven- 
tion \vhy a minority of the National Committee took the 
action that they did. The financial question has become and 
is the only question that the Democratic party feels an all-ab- 
sorbing interest in to-day. 

The Democratic party has been losing its adherents because 
the Democratic party has failed through its candidates to keep 
faith which it made with the voter by the platform it adopted. 
Knowing this fact, and desiring to see the Democratic banner 
in the ascendancy in November — which I have every hope to 
see — feeling and knowing that every delegation sent here 
pledged for silver has a constituency at home looking to 
this Convention, and if this Convention places as its Tem- 
porary Chairman, or Permanent Chairman, in this chair a 
man who represents the other side, there Avill be a luke- 
^varmness and a coldness in the campaign that we cannot 
afford to hazard. It was because the temporary oflftcer of this 
Convention would sound the keynote which would go all over 
this country, and which would be the basis of the battle in 
November. We want the keynote to be sounded by a silver 
representative. That is the reason, gentlemen, the minority 
of your committee makes this recommendation, and I submit 
to you that I think it is right that the majority of this Con- 
vention should select its candidate for Temporary Chairman. 

The Chair : The Convention will be in order. The 

Chair will now" recognize the gentleman from New York, 

Hon. John R. Fellows. 
6 



82 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Fellows. Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : Ordinarily it would be a comparatively imma- 
terial question as to which of these two distinguished, capa- 
ble and deserving Democrats occupied the position at this 
table as Temporary Chairman during your deliberations ; but 
the fact of rejection may be pregnant with a good deal of sig- 
nificance. I recognize here and everywhere, and my voice 
will have ceased its power of utterance when I fail to recog- 
nize the splendid ability and the almost unparalelled eloquence, 
the long devotion to the Democracy which characterize the 
senator from Virginia, and had he been named for a position 
in this Convention, or upon our ticket, New York would 
gladly have responded to the expression and given to him an 
enthusiastic Democratic support. 

But a great deal more than that is involved in this question 
to-day. I have yet to hear upon the part of these gentlemen 
who have addressed you an expression or argument, any log- 
ical statement as to why you should trample under foot the 
immemorial usages of your party, why you should violate all 
of its precedents and adopt a hitherto unheard of mode of pro- 
cedure. What is the reason for it? What is concealed 
behind it? What purposes undeveloped in the fact itself are 
to be accomplished by its consummation? 

Is it that you dare not trust the gentleman whom the 
majority of your National Committee has presented for your 
temporary officer? No ; you repel with becoming and indig- 
nant scorn that imputation; his whole life behind him exposed 
to the glare of the public gaze, always in the light of public 
observation, repels an insinuation of that character. No right 
of the majority of this Convention would be assailed, no re- 
strictions placed in the way of the completion of the purpose 
they have in view. 

Now, what is your attitude here to-day? Let us think it 
over for a moment, at least, before we proceed to this unheard 
of, this unnecessary act. The National Committee is the only 
organization existing through four years of interregnum that 
represents the entire body of the party. When each four 
years your Convention assembles it then takes matters in its 
own hands so far as the formulation of its policy and the 
selection of its candidate is concerned. But there is no power 



Democratic National Convention. 83 

authorized to call this body together, and there is no power 
authorized to assert the presence of a Convention save this 
National Committee ; and hitherto, for a longer period than 
is covered by the lives of any of the delegates ^vho sit before 
me, the National Committee has presented, for purposes of 
organization alone, and not with reference to deciding the 
policy of the party — it has presented officers temporarily to 
fill the chair. 

The gentleman from Colorado was unfortunate in his polit- 
ical reminiscence. It would have been better had he left 
unsaid that which he said, because for the first time in all the 
history of our Democratic party you are going back of its old 
traditions ; you are violating its time-honored usages, and 
you are accepting a thing that was done for the first time in 
the history of parties in this Republic by a Republican Con- 
vention. 

The gentleman from Colorado told us with powerful force 
of expression that they of the West who had been fighting the 
battles of Democracy so long had learned to be somewhat in- 
different to the views or wishes of the Republican party. 
And yet you begin the proceedings of this Convention by 
accepting a Republican precedent — disowned, denounced, 
flouted and spit upon by every Democratic body that has 
ever met. 

And against whom have you done it.? Ah, gentleman, 
you will neither question the Democracy, the fealty or the fair- 
ness of the gentleman whom the National Committee, in 
accordance with precedent, has presented here. But go 
further. Go further and see what precedent you ask us to 
establish, and see what the significance of your action is. You 
tell me this is not a personal affront ; this is not a thrust at an 
individual or a section. Then, if this Convention desires to 
follow the policy suggested by the gentleman from Colorado, 
and from the first take charge of it in the name of the 
majority, why is it you propose to accept all the rest of the 
report of the majority and select for your temporary officers 
all the persons that they have named other than the illustrious 
citizen of New York ? 

I stated that it was the fact of your rejection that would 
be pregnant with significance and importance. Think, now 



84 Official Proceedings of the 

that you propose to take all the rest that the National Com- 
mittee offered you. You are willing they should be opposed 
in sentiment to you, but you decline the gentleman from New 
York. You cannot evade the consequences of the suspicion 
that will be arou&ed. 

I trust that it will create no permanent breach, but I can- 
not understand why it is you strike down a temporary officer, 
singling him out from the entire list for the rude effects of 
your blows. I cannot understand it, unless there be some 
latent and undisclosed reason for it. 

Now, gentlemen of the majority, for we perfectly well 
understand that there is a majority of this Convention, large, 
pronounced, honest in conviction and decided in purpose, 
that stands opposed to some of us from the eastern part of the 
country. We recognize your right to control. You will go 
on, whoever is chairman here, and through your appropriate 
medium you will formulate and present to the country your 
policy. It cannot be changed by the selection of a temporary 
presiding officer. It will not be effected by anything that 
may be done during the temporary organization. It is the 
work of the permanent convention, after it is ascertained, and 
through its committees. 

Now, I want to tell you there is a precedent, and a 
powerful one, for your accepting here to-day the action of 
the National Committee, although it is not in accord with the 
majority sentiment of this Convention. Four years ago we 
met here, on the part of New York and some other portions 
of the country, to oppose the candidacy of the present Presi- 
dent of the United States w^hom we all knew had an exceedingly 
large majority of the delegates elected, but whom we did not 
believe at the time, perhaps, had the requisite two-thirds. 

But the sentiment of the majority was overwhelmingly in 
favor of the nomination of Mr. Cleveland, and we all knew 
it. And yet, gentlemen, and yet think of it for a moment, 
when in the National Committee it was suggested that a per- 
son known to be friendly to Mr. Cleveland's nomination 
and in sympathy with the majority was named for Tempo- 
rary Officer it was voted down, and Mr. Owens, of Kentucky, 
who was an opponent of Mr. Cleveland's and voted against 
him in the Convention, was selected as Temporary Officer, 



Democratic National Convention. 85 

and every member of the Convention accepted the action of 
the Committee. 

Then when the majority came to its own, it put in the 
chair a Permanent Officer of its choice. It made up its com- 
mittees in accordance with this sentiment and had its rightful 
way in the rest of the Convention. 

Gentlemen, do not do this thing. Do not do this thing. 
It rudely shatters old customs and ancient usages. There is 
much of sentiment that clings around the past ; there is much 
that appeals to those who have grown w^rinkled and gray in 
the service of the party, that appeals for perpetuation. We 
may walk after hitherto unknown leaders; we may accept 
hitherto, as we believe, unknown promulgation of Democratic 
faith ; we may do all you ask of us for the sake of the perpet- 
uation of the party ; but at least do it along the paths over 
which the fathers walked and in accordance with the usages 
that have grown sacred by years of custom to all of us. 

I do not know why you should do this thing. The gen- 
tleman has told us that for twenty-five years, the eloquent 
gentleman from Alabama, that for twenty-five years they have 
been giving candidates to New Vork. Very well, it is true 
that we have been more than honored and favored beyond 
our deserts. We are grateful in the name of the common 
Democracy for your generous action, but remember this, Ala- 
bama, remember it, Colorado, let it ring like the notes of 
the Coronation hymn through your hearts and brains, that 
although you gave us the candidate. New York gave you the 
only Democratic President you have had for years. Do not 
strike this blow^ at your loved son. Indiana has been named 
for a place upon your temporary organization. Indiana has 
been accepted. Other States have been named by the choice 
of gentlemen who will participate in this temporary organ- 
ization. 

You consent to accept them, but you turn against New 
York and would strike the Democrat whom every Democrat 
lov^es, I believe. You single him out for humiliation and 
sacrifice, and you present in his stead a gentleman we love, 
revere and honor, and yet who fought four years ago upon 
the platform of a Democratic National Convention, and who 
fought by the utterance of one of the most eloquent speeches 



86 Official Proceedings of the 

to which I ever listened for David B. Hill as the rightful 
candidate ; w^ho seconded the nomination of David B. 
Hill for President of these United States, who now seems 
to believe that he is unworthy to occupy this position. 
(Cries of "No, no, no," and cheers.) Ah, gentlemen, 
gentlemen, " Methinks you do protest too much or not 
enough ; " not far enough if you do not desire to leave the 
expression of action to the National Committee, then reject all 
this report and name other officers — the Secretaries, the Ser- 
geant-at-Arms and other officers who are upon that list. The 
significance of this is that you abandon all precedent, you 
trample under foot all past laws, and you do it against one 
man whom you select from this entire list. I make no 
threats; I shall regret any such action by this Convention. It 
is not a question of what we will do. We are Democrats, 
desiring to march with our party, to do what we can toward 
making its perpetuity and its ascendancy successful, but do 
not humiliate us; do not seek to inflict what seems to be a 
mark of punishment upon us, and, especially, if you must 
select a victim to drag to the altar and throw away the creed 
of your fathers, the customs you have followed from youth 
up, at least select a victim not so hallowed to the people, not 
so beloved by the Democracy, and not so necessary to its suc- 
cess as the one you have selected to-day. 

Upon the conclusion of Mr. Fellows' speech the Chair- 
man recognized Hon. B. W. Marston, of Louisiana, who 
spoke as follows: 

Mr. Marston : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : It is not that we love David B. Hill less, but 
we love Democracy more. We would not cast any aspersion 
upon our eastern friends. The best blood of Massachusetts 
courses through my veins, and I assure you, coming as I do 
from Louisiana, that we would not cast any aspersions upon 
you. But, gentlemen, you have got hold of the wrong end 
of the dilemma. It is us that you would trample upon two- 
thirds of this Convention; we ask you in the name of two- 
thirds of this Convention to give us the temporary chairman- 
ship . We state to the Democracy of the United States now 



Democratic National Convention. 87 

that we are on top and mean to assert our rights. If you had 
given us the temporary chairmanship we would never have 
protested. (Temporary confusion here resulted growing out 
of the applause, cheers and laughter that occurred because of 
an incident in the proceedings.) 

The Chair : I ^vant to repeat, and you may depend upon 
it that I mean it, that no progress will be made with the pro- 
ceedings of this Convention except in the usual, regular and 
orderly manner, and the Chair will not be hastened in his ac- 
tion or otherwise influenced by calls from or demonstrations 
in the galleries. 

Mr. Marston then continued as follows : Gentlemen of 
the Convention : Be quiet: listen that ye may hear. If David 
B. Hill, of New York, had stood by his speech of four years 
ago he would be the nominee of this Convention. Mr. Hill 
is now considered by two-thirds of this Convention as repre- 
senting the other side of this question. It is not against Hill, 
no ; it is not against anybody that we have proceeded in this 
manner, but it is in favor of the grand labor of America. 
We know as politicians that there is a wheel within a wheel. 
We knew that you intended to capture the chairmanship of 
this Convention, and we were to be held up to scorn and ridi- 
cule throughout the length and breadth of this land; we are 
forcing the issue, we are meeting the enemy in their own den ; 
we are killing them. And now the rule of the majority will 
be as fair by you as you have been by us and we will make 
this glorious country of ours blossom like a rose. 

The chair recognized Hon. John M. Duncan, of Texas, 
who spoke as follows: 

Hon. John M. Duncan: Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen 
of the Convention : It has been urged that to vote against 
David B. Hill in this Convention is to turn him down. 
(Cheers and hisses.) 

(A DELEGATE : There is some disorder in the galleries. We 
want the speaker's name and we want order in the galleries.) 

The Chair : The Sergeant-at-Arms will see that perfect 
quiet is preserved. The delegates will kindly co-operate to 



. 88 Official Proceedings of the 

that end. (Pause.) The name of the Speaker is Hon. John 
M. Duncan, of Texas. 

Mr. Duncan : Now, I will begin again. It has been 
said that David B. Hill is to be slaughtered in this Conven- 
tion. I want to ask you men who is least guilty of the 
slaughter ; those who slaughter, or those who lead to the 
slaughtering? His name was not cast before this Convention 
by the silver Democrats. On the contrary, I am informed 
through the public prints that the National Committee realized 
that there was a silver majority and it should have arranged a 
temporary organization of this Convention, so that it might 
be in consonance with the views of a majority. 

We love the name of David B. Hill down in Texas ; in 
proportion as it has decreased for every other Democrat, has it 
waxed for David B. Hill ; and we would that it were in our 
power to take his name out of this Convention. But we 
silver men are terribly in earnest, and outside of this Conven- 
tion, throughout this United States, are thousands on thou- 
sands who are as earnest as we are. 

Therefore, I say, let no message of things done in this 
Convention go out to these people who are to do the voting, 
from w^hich disloyalty to silver might be implied, and no mes- 
sage which would exaggerate in their minds the strength and 
influence of gold in this convention. Talk of Democratic 
precedent ! I want to know if the first violation of precedent 
w^as not when a majority of the Committee whose views were 
not in consonance with the views of the majority of this Con- 
vention, and over the protest of that majority, named a man, 
knowing that his views were diametrically opposed to the 
views of a majority of this Convention. 

They have forced the issue. We have not. We have got 
to meet it, and we might as well meet it now as at any time. 
I want to tell you that I do not believe that there is a single 
utterance from this platform on the part of Mr. Hill's sup- 
porters which would imply a threat against the Democratic 
party that is indorsed by Mr. Hill. He said, " I am a Dem- 
ocrat." He is a Democrat now, and he is the sort of a Demo- 
crat that when his party speaks in Conventions by a majority 
he will yield obedience to its will. Those who are speaking 



Democratic National Convention. 8^ 

for him on this platform had best marshal themselves in 
behind him. What we want is success in November, and as I 
said we do not want it to go out to the people any exaggera- 
tion of the strength of gold in this Convention where they 
admit that we have almost, if not quite, a two-thirds majority. 
I thank you for your attention. 

The Chair : The Chair recognizes Hon. C. K. Ladd, of 
Illinois. 

Mr. Ladd : Mr. Chairman and Gentleman of the Con- 
vention : I will not take up your time to make a speech. I 
wish to say as a member of the Democratic party and of the 
Democratic family, that there is no family quarrel, and I want 
the neighbors to understand it. I wish to say that the gentle- 
men from New York and Connecticut cannot say words in 
praise that shall go beyond the approval of the West, of the 
Senator of New York, neither can they of the Senator from 
Nevada or Virginia, or any other place ; we know no difference; 
all Democrats are good and some are better. 

There is no antagonism to Senator Hill ; a great man, an 
able man, an honest man. It is not our wish to turn down 
Mr. Hill as has been said, but it is to be recognized as a major- 
ity of the Democratic party of the United States, and that is 
all. The little giant from Connecticut pleaded with us to 
stand by traditions of our fathers: we will oblige him, Ave will 
do that. The tradition of our fathers is to honor your father 
and mother, and we cannot honor them any better than by 
correcting their mistakes. If it was a mistake to allow the 
Committee to make a Chairman then let us correct it. 

The issue is this : By a majority of four the National Com- 
mittee presents a candidate for Chairman here that is not in 
accord with the wishes of a majority of the Democrats of the 
United States. He would preside fairly ; no man doubts it. 
He would make a speech ; no man doubts it. It would be an 
able speech ; no man doubts that. It would be a New York 
speech, and no man doubts that; and the Democratic party 
— the majority of it — Avould have to explain that speech ta 
our Republican enemies during the whole campaign. They 
would say to us " you are divided amongst yourselves." 

I say to you that a house divided against itself shall not 



90 Official Proceedings of the 

succeed in November. The gentleman who says he would 
fight any other nomination or any other candidate meant to 
say that this minority report must be disposed of. I say let it 
be disposed of ; let it be done as friends. Why should four 
men present a candidate that was to them preferable to 
another, when two-thirds of the party are opposed to his senti- 
ment.? And why should we question the integrity of these 
men? 

These men on the National Committee were selected four 
years ago. No one questions their Democracy. Our state, 
that we are so proud of, selected her candidate then to repre- 
sent her — not fully in accord with us on the money issue, yet 
he is in accord with us as a Democrat, and that is enough. 
We will not quarrel if you will let us alone, I say to the 
gentleman from Connecticut that when he made the state- 
ment that he would fight us, his tongue slipped ; he meant 
to talk to Republicans; he meant that he would fight them, 
for no New England Democrat was ever knov^n to desert the 
ranks. 

Let us cease to call hard names ; let us cease to be bitter. 
Let us be all one family. Let us exchange our views and 
ideas good naturedly and in a candid way and bow to the will 
of the majority. Why is a motion submitted to an audience if 
it is not to be passed upon ; if it is to be passed upon, it must 
be by the majority ; and may we not vote ? 

If the Committee has made a recommendation that we do 
not like, may we not vote against it? And when we do it, 
exercise the greatest Democratic privilege in the world, of 
voting as we please. Now, Senator Hill nor his friends 
can justly take offense. It is not a fight against New York, 
against Senator Hill, but a recognition of the time-honored 
Democratic proposition that the majority shall rule. And so 
let it be. 

The Chair : The Chair presents Hon. J. W. St. 
Claire, of West Virginia. 

Mr. St. Claire : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I came here as warmly in favor of the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver, and in favor of the nomination of 
a rock-ribbed silver Democrat as any man in this body, but I 



Democratic National Convention. 91 

feel, my silver friends, that you are about to make a mistake. 
It is not to honor your platform that you give it to the people ; 
it is not honor for the candidate of your choice that you 
like to have, but it is his election that you must have, in 
November. I shall vote, I say, for the adoption of a silver 
platform and a silver candidate, but we are all here as Demo- 
crats ; let us adopt silver and a silver candidate according to 
Democratic methods. 

This is a Democratic Convention, and whatever you do, 
do it as Democrats. If you do otherwise I fear, my friends, 
as I have said, you will make a serious mistake. I shall 
vote against John W. Daniel. Born in his own community 
and in his own State — it is the regret of my life to have to do 
it — but my judgment is that it is wrong for the Democratic 
party, and it will make a mistake should we elect him to pre- 
side here now. 

Why, gentlemen, what can David B. Hill do in this 
Chair as your Temporary Chairman? He can do nothing 
more than make a speech, and if you cannot afford to discuss 
the money question in your own family how can you better 
afford to discuss it in the country? 

I am too good a silver man to be influenced by a speech 
from David B. Hill or anybody else ; but David B. Hill 
and every other man in the minority of this Convention is 
entitled to be heard, heard fairly, heard justly. Again, gen- 
tlemen, above everything what we must have, if we would 
carry our standards to success at the polls, is a united Democ- 
racy. What, I repeat, can he do? The great majority of this 
Convention have selected every committee that is to be 
appointed by this body. Your platform, your credentials, 
your permanent organization, every committee has been 
selected by the silver people in this Convention. He can do 
nothing more than did William Owens in 1892, an anti- 
Cleveland man, who presided as its Temporary Chairman. I 
came here four years ago, and with my friend from Colorado 
fought hand in hand in favor of David B. Hill for President 
and against Grover Cleveland. My friends, I believe some 
of you have lived to see the mistake that you did not follow the 
wisdom of that minority at that time. Don't make any mis- 
take. Let us be Democrats, let us be silver Democrats. 



92 Official Proceedings of the 

Throw out the olive branch ; you can afford to do it ; you can 
afford to be liberal. Above all, gentlemen, I appeal to you to 
be just. 

The Chair: Gentlemen of the Convention: Unless a 
clear majority of the delegates to the Convention shall seem 
to determine or indicate to the contrary, the Chair will direct 
a call of the roll immediately after the recognition of the next 
gentleman. It is for the delegates to determine whether the 
Chair is unduly hasty in thus directing the calling of the roll. 
(Applause and cries of " Roll, roll.") Then, as the Chair 
understands the sentiment of the delegates, he will present 
the last gentleman to be heard upon this question, namely, 
Hon. Henry D. Clayton, of Alabama. 

Mr. Clayton : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I promise you that I will not offend the majority 
with threats. But, gentlemen, what objections have been 
presented for your consideration against the adoption of the 
report or recommendation of the minority of the National 
Committee? First, they say that it is personal to Senator 
Hill. That we deny. Four years ago, when the anti-snap- 
pers, who now praise him, were dominant, I was his friend 
and champion. There is nothing personal in it. 

Again, it is said that it is sectional. We have gone, as 
the speakers have said, to New York, time after time, for our 
candidate. We have honored New York. We will honor 
her again, and let David B. Hill, as I know he will, support 
the nominee of this Convention — reiterate his declaration for 
independent free coinage of silver, in line with that great 
Elmira speech — and we will make him President. I love, 
honor and respect him, for at his feet I have learned Democ- 
racy. He helped to indoctrinate you and me with the faith 
that is in us in respect to this great and burning issue that we 
must settle. 

Now, then, it is said that we violate tradition. What tra- 
dition? Read the writings of the fathers, search them in vain 
and tell me what law you would bring to bear upon this case. 
What declaration would you quote as here and now applica- 
ble? That is, that the majority of Democrats are entitled to- 
rule in a Democratic Convention, 



Democratic National Convention. 



93 



And it is said again, the fourth objection, that the Repub- 
licans will criticise us. Great God, my fellow citizens, has 
it come to that, that a Democrat is driven to the extremity 
for an argument to look to Republican approval for what we 
shall do in our Convention ? If there were no other reason 
than the fact, if it be a fact, that the Republicans will con- 
dem us for it, that in God's name would be enough to make 
me support the minority. 

Now, gentlemen, and you, Mr. Chairman, I ask you 
that this debate be closed. We hope that we will have just 
as free and unlimited coinage of silver as we have had free 
and unlimited speech. (Applause.) 

The Chair : The vote is now to be taken upon the motion 
offered by the gentlemen from Alabama that the name of Hon. 
John W. Daniel, of Virginia, be substituted for that of Hon. 
David B. Hill, of New York, for the position of Tempo- 
rary Chairman of this Convention. The Secretary will call 
the roll of States, and the chairmen of delegations will 
announce the votes of their resoective States. 

The Secretary called the roll with the following result: 

Yea. Nry. 

Alabama , 22 

Arkansas 16 

California 18 

Colorado 8 

Connecticut 12 

Delaware 6 

Florida 4 4 

Georgia 26 

Idaho 6 

Illinois 48 

Indiana 80 

Iowa 26 



Hon. W. H. Stackhouse, of Iowa : I protest against the 
vote of Iowa as reported. 

The Chair: The vote of Iowa is challenged, as I under- 
stand it? 



94 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Stackhouse : Yes, sir. 

The Chair : The Secretary will call the roll of delegates 
from the State of Iowa. 

Hon. William J. Stone, of Missouri : Mr. Chairman : I 
understand the Democracy of the State of Iowa in convention 
assembled adopted the unit rule ; and I desire to know 
whether a majority of the delegates cannot cast the entire 
vote of the State ? 

The Chair : The Chair holds that the proposition, as 
stated by the gentleman from Missouri, is entirely correct. 
The Chair further holds that if a delegate from any given 
State challenges the accuracy or integrity of the vote of the 
State as announced that then the list of delegates from that 
State shall be called for the purpose of verifying the vote as 
reported. The Secretary will proceed with the call of the 
roll of delegates from the State of Iowa. 

The result having been counted by the Secretary, the 
Chairman made the announcement that the vote had 
resulted in yeas 19, nays 7, and then said: 

The Chair : The Iowa delegation having been instructed 
to vote as a unit, the vote of that State will be recorded as 
26 votes yea. 

The Secretary proceeded with the roll-call as follows:. 
Kansas, yeas 20; Kentucky, yeas 26. When Kentucky 
was reached Hon. W. B. Haldeman, of Louisville, chal- 
lenged the vote cast by Chairman James. Thereupon the 
Secretary was directed to call the roll. 

The Chairman announced the vote as follows: Ken- 
tucky casts 24 yeas, 2 nays. Kentucky being under 
instructions to vote as a unit, the vote will be recorded as- 
26 yeas. 

The roll-call was then continued with the following 
result: Louisiana 16 yeas; Maine, yeas 2, nays 10; Mary- 
land, yeas 4, nays 12; Massachusetts, nays 30; Michigan,, 
nays 28. 



Democratic National Convention. 95 

Hon. W. F. McKnight, of Michigan, challenged the 
announcement made by tne Chairman of the Michigan del- 
egation and asked that the delegation be polled. 

The Chair announced the result as follows: The vote 
within the Michigan delegation resulted in 12 yeas and 16 
nays. Under the usual practice the 28 votes of Michigan 
will be cast ' 'nay." 

The Secretary continued the call of the roll as follows: 
Minnesota, yeas 7, nays 11; Mississippi, yeas 18; Missouri, 
yeas 34; Montana, yeas 6; Nebraska, nays 16; Nevada, yeas 
6; New Hampshire, nays 8; New Jersey, nays 20; New 
Mexico, yeas 2. 

When New York was called the Chairman of the New 
York delegation (Hon. Roswell P. Flower) arose and 
said that one delegate, Hon. David B. Hill, did not vote. 
The vote stood 71 nays. 

The Chair : As the Chair understands the Chairman 
of the New York delegation, Senator Hill did not vote on 
this question, and New York, therefore, cast but 71 nays. Is 
that correct } 

The Chairman of the New York delegation : That is cor- 
rect. (Loud applause.) 

The roll call was continued as follows: North Carolina, 
yeas 22; North Dakota, yeas 6. 

When the State of Ohio was called, the Chairman of 
the delegation arose and said: " On the poll of the State 
there were 8 votes nay; but by the operation of the unit rule 
Ohio casts 46 votes yea." 

Hon. S. A. Holding, of Ohio, challenged the vote and 
the roll of the State was called. 

The Chair announced the result as 38 yeas and 8 nays, 
and stated that, under the unit rule, the vote would be cast 
as 46 yeas. 

The call of the roll was then resumed as follows: Ore- 
gon, yeas 8; Pennsylvania, nays 64; Rhode Island, nays 8; 



96 Official Proceedings of the 

South Carolina, yeas i8; South Dakota, nays 8; Tennessee, 
yeas 24; Texas, yeas 30; Utah, yeas 6; Vermont, nays 8. 

When Virginia was called the Chairman of the delega- 
tion said: "Virginia casts 23 votes yea and i vote — that of 
Hon. John W. Daniel — nay.". (Loud applause.) Wash- 
ington, 5 yeas, 3 nays; West Virginia, 9 yeas, 3 nays. 

When Wisconsin was called, the Chairman of the dele- 
gation announced that the State cast 24 votes nay. The 
vote was challenged by Hon. E. J. Dockery, and the roll 
was directed to be called. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to know whether the 
unit rule was adopted by the State of Wisconsin.'' Will the 
Chairman of the delegation be kind enough to inform him.? 

Gen. Edward S. Bragg : I desire to inform the Chair 
that Wisconsin votes as a unit on all questions, as the major- 
ity shall direct. 

The Chair : The vote of Wisconsin is 4 yeas and 20 
nays ; but under the unit rule she casts 24 nays. 

Upon the Territories being called, the Chair said: 

The Chair : The Chair holds that each of the Terri- 
tories and the District of Columbia is entitled to but two 
votes. The vote of New Mexico, as announced, was received 
inadvertently; but the roll will be corrected, and the attention 
of the Convention is now called to the mistake. The Secre- 
tary will be kind enough to correct the roll by crediting New 
Mexico with 2 votes instead of 6 votes. 

The District of Columbia, Oklahoma and Indian Terri- 
tory each cast 2 yeas. 

The total vote was counted and verified. 

The Chair : The tellers agree in their tally and report 
the vote as follows: Yeas, 556; nays, 849; not voting, 1. 
The motion offered by the gentleman from Alabama substitut- 
ing the name of Senator Daniel for that of Senator Hill 
for the Temporary Chairmanship of this Convention is 
adopted. 



Democratic National Convention. 



97 



(Although Alabama voted as a unit, it was announced 
that the following in that delegation would have voted for 
Senator Hill but for the adoption of the unit rule: D. R. 
Burgess, J. P. Know, S. J. Carpenter, J. H. Minge and 
H. B. Foster.) 

The ballot by States was as follows : 



States Total Vote 

Alabama 22 

Arkansas 16 

California 18 

Colorado 8 

Connecticut. .. 12 

Delaware 6 

Florida 8 

Georgia 26 

Idaho 6 

Illinois 48 

Indiana. 30 

Iowa 26 

Kansas 20 

Kentucky 26 

Louisiana 16 

Maine 12 

Maryland 16 

Massachusetts.. 30 

Michigan 28 

Minnesota 18 

Mississippi .... 18 

Missouri 34 

Montana 6 

Nebraska 16 

Nevada 6 

NewHampshire 8 
New Jersey. ... 20 



Teas 


Nays 


22 


, . 


16 


, , 


18 


. . 


8 


, , 


, , 


12 




6 


4 


4 


26 


, , 


6 






48 


. 




30 


, 




26 






20 






26 






16 






2 


10 


4 


12 


. , 


30 


, . 


28 


7 


11 


18 


, , 


34 


, , 


6 




, , 


16 


6 


, . 


. , 


8 




2( 


) 



States Total Vote 

New York 72 

North Carolina. 22 
North Dakota. 6 

Ohio 46 

Oregon 8 

Pennsylvania . . 64 
Rhode Island. . 8 
South Carolina. 18 
South Dakota. . 8 
Tennessee. ... 24 

Texas 30 

Utah 6 

Vermont 8 

Virginia 24 

Washington. . . 8 
West Virginia. 12 

Wisconsin 24 

Wyoming 6 

Alaska 2 

Arizona 2 

Dist. Columbia. 2 
New Mexico. . . 2 

Oklahoma 2 

IndianTerritory 2 

Totals 906 



Teas 

22 

6 
46 



18 

24 

30 

6 

23 
5 
9 

6 

2 
2 
2 
2 
2 



Nays 
71 



64 



1 

3 

3 

24 



556 349 



(When the result of this vote was announced there was 
a period of nearly twenty minutes during which no business 
could be transacted, on account of the applause, cheers, 
noise and confusion. The Sergeant-at-Arnis directed every 
delegate to take his seat. He also ordered his assistants to 
clear the aisles. When order had been restored the Chair- 
man said:) 

7 



98 Official Proceedings of the 

The Chair : Unless objection be made by the Conven- 
tion, the Chair will regard the vote which has just been 
announced as a practical rejection of the report of the Demo- 
cratic National Committee, and he will not consider it neces- 
sary to put the questions involved to formal votes. (Pause.) 
There being no objection to this suggestion the Chair will 
appoint Hon. J. K. Jones, of Arkansas, Hon. R. P. Keat- 
ing, of Nevada, and Hon. Stephen M. White of Cali- 
fornia, as a committee of three to escort Senator Daniel 
to the Chair. 

Escorted by the committee, the Temporary Chairman, 
Hon. John W. Daniel, of Virginia, passed up to the plat- 
form. When order was restored, Mr. Harrity said: 

The Chair: Gentlemen of the Convention, I have the 
honor of introducing as your Temporary Chairman, Hon. 
John W. Daniel, of Virginia. 

The Chair (Hon. W. F. Harrity) then surrendered the 
gavel to Senator Daniel, who accepted it and spoke as fol- 
lows: 

Hon. John W. Daniel : Mr. Chairman of the Demo- 
cratic National Committee : In receiving from your hands- 
this gavel as the temporary presiding ofhcer of this Conven- 
tion, I beg leave to express a sentiment, which I am sure is 
unanimous, that no national convention was ever presided 
over with more ability or ^vith more fairness or with more 
dignity than by yourself. I can express no better wish for 
myself than that I may be able in some feeble fashion ta 
mould my conduct by your model and to profit by your 
example. (Applause and cheers with cries of "Harrity, 
Harrity.") 

Mr. Chairman, the high position to which this Conven- 
tion has chosen me is accepted with profound gratitude for the 
honor which it confers and with a keen sense of the responsi- 
bility which it entails upon me. 

That responsibility I would be wholly inadequate to bear 
did I depend upon myself, but your gracious aid can make its- 
yoke easy and its burden light. That aid I confidently invoke 



Democratic National Convention. 99 

for the sake of the great cause under whose banner we have 
fought so many battles and which now demands our stanch 
devotion and loyal service. 

I regret that my name should have been brought in even 
the most courteous competition with that of my distinguished 
friend, the great Senator from New York ; but no one of dis- 
passionate and candid judgment will misinterpret your mean- 
ing, but he will readily recognize the fact as I do, that there 
is no personality in the preferment given us. He must know 
as we all do that it is solely due to the principle that this 
great majority of Democrats stands for and that I stand for 
with them; and that it is given, too, in the spirit of the instruc- 
tions received by these representatives of the people, from the 
people, whom all Democrats bow to as the original and purest 
fountain of all power. 

The birth of the Democratic party was coeval with the 
birth of the sovereignty of the people. It can never die until 
the Declaration of American Independence is forgotten, and 
that sovereignty is dethroned and extinguished. 

As the majority of the Convention is not personal in its 
aims, neither is it sectional. It blends the palmetto and the 
pine. It begins with the sunrise in Maryland, and spreads 
into a sunburst in Louisiana and Texas. It stretches in un- 
broken line across the continent from Virginia and Georgia to 
California. It sends forth its pioneers from Plymouth Rock 
and ^vaves over the wheat fields of Dakota. It has its strong- 
holds in Alabama and Mississippi and its outposts in Minne- 
sota, Florida and Oregon. It sticks like a tar-heel in the old 
North State, and writes sixteen-to-one on the saddlebags of 
the Arkansas traveler. It pours down its rivulets from the 
mountains of West Virginia and makes a great lake in New 
Mexico, Arizona, Wyoming and Idaho, Nevada, Montana and 
Colorado. It stands guard around the National Capitol, in 
the District of Columbia, and camps on the frontiers of Okla- 
homa. It sweeps like a prairie fire over Iowa and Kansas, 
and lights up the horizon in Nebraska. It marshals its massive 
battalions in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and Missouri. 

Last, but not least — when I see this grand army and think 
of the British Gold Standard that recently was unfurled over 



100 Official Proceedings of the 

the ruins of Republican promises in St. Louis, I think, too, of 
the battle of New Orleans, of which 'tis said : 

" There stood John Bull in marshal pomp, 
But there was Old Kentucky." 

Brethren of the East, there is no North, South, East or 
West in this uprising of the people for American emancipa- 
tion from the conspiracy of European Kings led by Great 
Britain, which seeks to destroy one-half of the money of the 
world, and to make American manufacturers, merchants, 
farmers and mechanics hewers of wood and drawers of water. 

And there is one thing golden that let me commend to you. 
It is the Golden Rule, to do unto others as you would have 
them do unto you. Remember the creed of Jefferson, that 
absolute acquiescence in the will of the majority is the vital 
principle of the Republic, and Democrats as you have been, 
Democrats that you should be, acquiesce now in the will of 
this great majority of your fellow Democrats, who only ask 
you to go with them as they have often times gone with you. 

Do not forget that for thirty years we have supported the 
men that you named for President — Seymour, Greeley, Til- 
den, Hancock and Cleveland. Do not forget that we have 
submitted cheerfully to your compromise platforms and to your 
repeated pledges for bimetallism, and have patiently borne 
repeated disappointments as to their fulfillment. 

Do not forget that even in the last National Convention of 
1892, you proclaimed yourself to be in favor of the use of both 
gold and silver as the standard money of the country and for 
the coinage of both gold and silver without discrimination 
against either metal or charge for mintage, and that the only 
question left open was the ratio between the two metals. 

Do not forget that just four years ago in that same Con- 
vention the New York delegation stood here solid and immov- 
able for a candidate committed to the free and unlimited 
coinage of silver and gold at the ratio of sixteen to one ; and 
that if w^e are for it still it is in some measure from your 
teachings. 

That we owe you much is readily acknowledged and 
gratefully acknowledged, but are not our debts mutual, and 
not one sided to each other.? 

The Force Bill, the McKinley Bill and the Sherman Law 



Democratic National Convention. 101 

were the triplet progeny of the Republican party. The first 
was aimed not more at the South than at the pfreat cities of 
the East, and chief among them at the great Democratic city 
of New York, \^ith its munificent patronage. It got its death 
blow in the Senate where there was not a single Democratic 
vote from New York and all New England. If you helped 
to save the South it also helped to save you, and neither the 
East nor the South could have saved itself had not these great 
American Republican Senators from the West, Teller and 
WoLCOTT, vStewart, Jones, and Sanford sunk partisanry 
in patriotism and come to the rescue of American institutions. 
No man can revive Force Bills now in this glorious reconciled 
and reunited republic. Our opponents themselves have aban- 
doned them ; there is none that can stand between the union 
of hearts and hands that Grant in his dying vision saw was 
coming on angels' Avings to all the sons of our common 
country. 

When Chicago dressed with flowers the Southern graves 
she buried sectionalism under a mountain of fragrance ; and 
when the Southern soldiers cheered but yesterday the wounded 
hero of the North in Richmond, she answered back "let us 
have peace, peace and union and liberty forever." 

As this majority of Democrats is not sectional neither is 
it for any privilege or class or for class legislation. The ac- 
tive business men of this country, its manufacturers, its mer- 
chants, its farmers, its sons of toil in counting room, factory, 
field and mine, know that a contraction of currency s\veeps 
away with the silent and relentless force of the gravitation the 
annual profits of their enterprise and investment, and they 
know, too, that the gold standard means contraction and the 
organization of disaster. 

What hope is there for the country, what hope for De- 
mocracy unless the views of the majority here be adopted? 

Do not the people know that it was not silver legislation 
but the legislation dictated by the advocates of the gold 
standard that has caused and now continues the financial de- 
pression ? Do they not know that when their demands upon 
Democracy were complied with in 1898 and the Sherman 
Law repealed without a substitute, — that the very States of 
the East that demanded it turned against the Democrats v/ho 



102 Official Proceedings of the 

granted it and swept away their majorities in a torrent of 
ballots. Had the silver men had their way instead of the 
gold monometallists. — what storms of abuse would now burst 
here upon their heads. * ' 

But the people are now applying the power of memory and 
analysis to discover the causes of their arrested prosperity and 
they need not go far to find them. 

They do not forget that when Democracy came to power 
in 1893 it inherited from its Republican predecessors a tax 
system and a currency system of which the McKinley Law 
and the Sherman Law were the culminating atrocities. It 
came amidst the panic which quickly followed their enact- 
ment, amongst decreased wages, strikes, lock-outs, riots and 
civic commotions, while the scenes of peaceful industry in 
Pennsylvania had been turned into military camps. Besides 
manifold oppressive features the McKinley Law had thrown 
away $50,000,000 of revenue tax derived from sugar under 
the spectral plea of a free breakfast table, and had substituted 
bounties to sugar planters, thus decreasing revenue and in- 
creasing expenditure, burning the candle at both ends, and 
making the people pay at last for the alleged free breakfast. 
From the joint operations of the McKinley Law and Sher- 
man Law an adverse balance of trade had been forced against 
us in 1893, a surplus of $100,000,000 in the Treasury had 
been converted into a deficit of seventy million in 1894 before 
a Democratic statute had yet come into operation, and en- 
graved bonds prepared by a Republican Secretary to borrow 
money to support the Government were the ill omens of the 
preorganized ruin which awaited incoming Democracy at a 
depleted treasury. 

More significant still, the very authors of the ill starred 
and ill-connected Sherman makeshift were already at confes- 
sional and upon the stool of penitence and vs^ere begging help 
from Democrats to put out this conflagration of disaster which 
they themselves had invited. 

So far as revenue to support the Government is concerned 
the Democratic party with but a slender majority in the Senate 
was not long in providing it, and had not the Supreme Court 
of the United States reversed its settled doctrines of a hundred 



Democratic National Convention. 103 

years the income tax incorporated in their tariff bill would 
long since have supplied the deficit. 

Respecting finance, the Republicans, Populists and Demo- 
cratic parties, while differing upon other subjects, had alike 
declared for the restoration of our American system of bimet- 
allism. 

By Republican and Democratic votes alike the Sherman 
Law was swept from the statute books. The eagerness to 
rid the country of that Republican incubus being so great that 
no pause was made to provide its substitute. But in the very 
act of its repeal it w^as solemnly declared to be the policy of 
the United States to continue the use of both gold and silver 
as standard money and to coin them into dollars of equal 
intrinsic and exchangeable value. 

The Republican party has now renounced the creed of its 
platforms and of our statutes. It has presented to the coun- 
try the issue of higher taxes, more bonds and less money. It 
has proclaimed for the British gold standard. 

We can only expect, should they succeed, new spasms of 
panic and a long protracted period of depression. Do not ask 
us then to join them on any of these propositions. Least of 
all, ask us not to join them upon the money question to fight 
a sham battle over the settled tariff, for the money question is 
the one paramount issue before the people and it involves true 
Americanism more than any economic issue ever presented to 
the people at a Presidential election. 

Existing Gold standard ? Whence comes the idea that we 
are upon it. Not from the Democratic platform of 1892, 
which promised to hold us to the double one. Not from the 
last enactment of Congress on the subject in repealing the 
Sherman Law, which pledges us to the continuance of the 
-double one. Not from any statute of the United States now 
in force. No, we are not upon any gold standard, but we 
have a disordered and miscellaneous currency, of nine varie- 
ties, three of metal and six of paper, the product for the most 
part of Republican legislation, rendered worse by Treasury 
practices begun by Republican Secretaries and unfortunately 
copied. 

And consider these facts. The federal, state and municipal 
taxes are assessed and paid by the standard of the whole mass 



104 Official Proceedings of the 

of money in circulation. No authority has ever been con- 
ferred by Congress for the issue of bonds payable in gold, but 
distinctly refused. The Specie Resumption Act of 1875 made 
the surplus revenue in the Treasury, not gold only, the redemp- 
tion fund. Before the period for the operation of that act 
arrived provision was made by the Bland-Allison Act which 
has added to our circulation some three hundred and fifty mill- 
ions of standard silver money or paper based upon it and they 
are sustained at parity with gold by nothing on earth but the 
metal in them and their legal tender functions. We have no 
outstanding obligations payable in gold except the small sum 
of forty-four million of gold certificates which of course should 
be so paid. All of our specie obligations are payable in coin, 
which means silver or gold at Government option, or in silver 
only. There is more silver or paper based upon it in circula- 
tion than there is in gold or paper based on gold. And that 
gold dollars are not the sole units of value is demonstrated by 
the fact that no gold dollar pieces whatever are now minted. 

If we should go upon the gold standard it is evident that we 
must change the existing bimetallic standard of payment of 
all public debts, taxes and appropriations, save these specifi- 
cally payable in gold only. And as we have twenty billions 
of public and private debt it would take more than three times 
all the gold in the country to pay one year's interest in that 
medium. 

We should be compelled hereafter to contract the currency 
by paying the five hundred millions of greenbacks and Sher- 
man notes in gold, which would nearly exhaust the entire 
American stock in and out of the Treasury, and the same 
policy would require that the three hundred and forty-four 
millions of silver certificates should be paid in gold as fore- 
shadowed by the present Director of the Mint in his recom- 
mendation. 

This means the increase of the public debt by five hundred 
millions of interest bearing bonds with the prospect of three 
hundred and forty-four millions to follow. 

The disastrous consequences of such a policy are appalling 
to contemplate, and the only alternative suggested is the free 
coinage of silver as well as gold and the complete restoration 
of our American system of bimetallism. 



Democratic National Convention. 105 

Bring us we pray you no more makeshifts and straddles. 
Vex the country with no more propiiesies of smooth things to 
come from the British republican gold propaganda. 

The fact that European nations are going to the gold 
standard renders it all the more impracticable for us to do so, 
for the limited stock of gold would have longer division and a 
smaller share for each nation. 

Remember how punctually predictions made when the 
unconditional repeal of the Sherman Law out of silver have 
been refuted. 

Instead of protecting the treasury reserve, as was pro- 
claimed it would do, an unprecedented raid was promptly 
made upon it, and two hundred and sixty-two millions of 
borrowed gold have been insufficient to guarantee its security^ 

Instead of causing foreign capital to float to us, it has stimu- 
lated the flow of gold to Europe, and the greenback notes and 
the Sherman notes, which are just as much payable in silver as 
in gold, have been used to dip the gold out of the Treasury 
and pour it into the strong boxes of the war lords of Europe. 

Instead of reviving business, this policy has further de- 
pressed it. Instead of increasing wages, this policy has fur- 
ther decreased them. Instead of multiplying opportunities 
for employment, this policy has multiplied idlers w^ho cannot 
get it. 

Instead of increasing the prices of our produce, this policy 
has lo\vered them, as is estiniated, about fifteen per cent, in 
three years. Instead of restoring confidence, this policy has 
banished confidence. Instead of bringing relief, it has brought 
years of misery, and for obvious reasons ; it has contracted 
the currency four dollars a head for every woman, man and 
child in the United States since November 1, 1893. And 
with this vast aggregate of contraction the prices of land and 
manufactured goods and of all kinds of agricultural and me- 
chanical produce have fallen ; the public revenue has fallen. 
the wages of labor have fallen, and everything has fallen but 
taxes and debts, which have growm in burden. While on the 
other hand, the means of payment have diminished in value. 
Meantime, commercial failures have progressed. The divi- 
dends of banks have shrunken. 

Three-fourths of our railway mileage have gone into the 



106 Official Proceedings of the 

hands of receivers, and the country has received a shock from 
w^hich it will take many years to recover. In this condition 
the new-fledged monometallists ask us to declare for a gold 
standard and wait for relief upon some ghostly dream of 
International Agreement. 

But the people well know now that the conspiracy of 
European monarchs led by Great Britain has purposes of 
aggrandizement to subserve in the war upon American silver 
money, and stand in the way of such agreement. They are 
creditor nations and seek to enhance the purchasing power of 
the thousands of millions of debt owed to them all over the 
world and much of which we owe. They draw upon us for 
much of their food supplies and raw materials, for meat, 
wheat, corn, oil, cotton, wool, iron, lead and the like staples, 
and seek to get them for the least money. Besides this Great 
Britain has large gold mines in South America, Australia 
and South Africa, and by closing our silver mines has greatly 
-enhanced their value and their products. Recent British 
aggressions against Venezuela and the settlements in South 
Africa were moved by the desire to add to the possession of 
gold mines and by monopolizing that metal as far as possible 
to assert the commercial supremacy of the world. 

No nation can call itself independent that cannot establish 
a financial system of its own. We abhor the pretense that 
this the foremost, richest, and most powerful nation of the 
world, cannot coin its own money, without suing for Inter- 
national Agreement at the courts of European autocrats, who 
having that primary interest to subserve, have for many years 
held out to us the idea before every Presidential election that 
they would enter upon such an agreement and foiled every 
effort to obtain it afterwards. 

We have never had an international agreement about our 
money system with foreign nations, and none of the found- 
ers of the Republic ever dreamed that such an agreement was 
essential. We have had three international conferences with 
European powers in order to obtain it and to wait longer 
upon them is to ignore the people's interest, to degrade our 
national dignity and to advertise our impotence and folly. 

The concession that the scientific thought is for the 
double standard as the only solution of financial difficulty is 



Democratic National Convention. 107 

•concession that wisdom far and wide cheers us on. The 
declaration that the English Commons, the Prussian Diet and 
French Minister of Finance have recently expressed them- 
selves in its favor shows that it would succeed if not sup- 
pressed by the sinister influences of autocratic power. 

The concession that international agreement could restore 
the metals to equality and that such restoration would be a 
boon to mankind, is a concession that law regulates the value 
of money and that the bimetallists are right in their theories 
of a double standard. 

The framers of our Constitution knew this when they gave 
power to Congress to coin money and regulate the value 
thereof and of foreign coins, and when they prohibited the 
States from making any thing but gold and silver legal 
tender. Hamilton knew this when he framed the first mint 
act in 1792 and based the unit of our currency upon both 
metals for the double reason assigned by him that to exclude 
one would reduce it to a mere merchandise and involve the 
difference between a full and a scanty circulation, Jefferson 
knew this when he indorsed the work of Hamilton, and 
Washington when he approved it. Daniel Webster knew 
this when he declared that gold and silver were our legal stand- 
ard and that neither Congress nor any State had the right to 
establish any other standard or displace this standard. 

Gen. Grant knew this when he looked to silver as a 
resource of payment and found to his astonishment that a 
Republican Congress had demonetized it and that he as Pres- 
ident had unwillingly signed the bill. The people of the 
United States know this now and know also that "they 
who would be free themselves must strike the blow." 

We maintain that this great Nation v^^ith a natural base, as 
Gladstone said, of the greatest continuous empire ever estab- 
lished by man, with far more territory and more productive 
energy than Great Britain, France and Germany combined, 
without dependence upon Europe for anything that it produces 
and with European dependence upon us for much that w^e 
produce, is fully capable of restoring its constitutional money 
system of gold and silver at equality with each other, and as 
our Fathers in 1776 declared our National Independence, so 
now has the party founded by Thomas Jefferson, the author 



108 Official Proceedings of the 

of that declaration, met here to declare our financial independ- 
ence of all other nations and to invoke all true Americans to 
assert it by their votes and place their country where it of 
right belongs as the freest and foremost nation of the earth. 
Gentlemen of the Convention, I now announce that the 
National Democratic Convention is in session and is ready to 
proceed to the business of permanent organization. 

(There was so much confusion in the hall when Chair- 
man Daniel finished his speech that he requested the 
Sergeant-at-Arms to restore order. The Sergeant-at-Arms 
thereupon directed the Assistant Sergeants-at-Arms to see 
that all were seated, and the police were directed to remove 
everybody from the hall who were not seated.) 

The Chair then recognized Senator J. K. Jones, of 
Arkansas, who said: 

Senator Jones : On behalf of the silver members of this 
Convention and at the personal request of a number of them, 
I offer the following resolution and move its adoption : 

(The resolution was sent to the platform, and read as 
follows:) 

Resolved^ That the thanks of this Convention are due to 
Hon. William F. Harrity, Chairman of the Democratic 
National Committee, for the able and impartial manner in 
which he has discharged his duty while presiding over the 
deliberations of this Convention. (Cheers and applause.) 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 

The Chair recognized Senator Stephen M. White,. 
of California, who offered the following resolution and 
moved its adoption: 

Resolved^ That the rules of the last National Democratic 
Convention, including the rules of the House of Representa- 
tives of the Fifty-third Congress, so far as applicable, govern 
this body until otherwise ordered. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 



Democratic National Convention. 



109 



Hon. J. S. Hogg, of Texas, introduced the following 
resolution, and moved its adoption: 

Resolved^ That the roll of the States and Territories be 
now called, and that each delegation name one member to act 
as a member of the Committee on Credentials ; one member as 
a member of the Committee on Permanent Organization ; one 
member as a member of the Committee on Rules and Order of 
Business ; one member as a member of the Committee on 
Platform, and that all resolutions relating to the platform and 
all communications addressed to the Convention, be referred, 
without reading or debate, to the Committee on Platform, 
and that the credentials of each delegation be delivered to the 
member of the Committee on Credentials from such delegation. 

The Secretary called the roll of States and Territories 
for the appointment of these several Committees. 

The following are the Committees as thus selected: 

COMMITTEE ON CREDENTIALS. 



Alabama — R. T. Goodwin. 
Arkansas — S. M. Taylor. 
California— William R. Bourke. 
Colorado— T. J. O'Donnell. 
Connecticut — E. D. Coogan. 
Delaware — William H. Boyce. 
Florida — E. D. Lukenbill. 
Georgia— H. T^ Lewis. 
Idaho— T. Regan. 
Illinois— A. W. Hope. 
Indiana — Eli Marvin. 
Iowa — Will A. Wells. 
Kansas— J. H. Atwood. 
Kentucky — David R. Murray. 
Louisiana — H. W. Ogden. 
Maine— L. B. Deasy. 
Maryland — Edwin Warfield. 
Massachusetts — John C. Crosby. 
Michigan — A. R. Tripp. 
Minnesota — C. L. Baxter. 
Mississippi — A. J. McLaurin. 
Missouri — M. E. Benton. 
Montana — W. G. Downing. 
Nebraska — C. Hollenbeck. 
Nevada — R. P. Keating. 
ISIew Hampshire — C. A. Sinclair. 



New Jersey — E, P. Meany. 
New York — Siviith M. Weed. 
North Carolina — W. D. Turner. 
North Dakota— J. H. Holt. 
Ohio — Ulric Sloan. 
Oregon — W. F. Butcher. 
Pennsylvania — J. H. Cochran. 
Rhode Island — John E. Conley. 
South Carolina — W. H. Ellerbe. 
South Dakota — S. A. Ramsey. 
Tennessee — T. M. McConnell. 
Texas — J. W. Blake. 
Utah — David Evans. 
Vermont — S. C. Shurtliff. 
Virginia — C. A. Swanson. 
Washington — Thomas M alone y. 
West Virginia — W. E. R. Byrne. 
Wisconsin — John H. Brennan. 
Wyoming — J. W. Sammon. 
Alaska — Lewis L. Williams, 
Arizona — J. F. Wilson. 
Dist. of Columbia — John Boyle. 
Indian Ter. — Z. James Woods. 
New Mexico — John Y. Hewitt. 
Oklahoma — W. S. Denton. 



no 



Official Proceedings of the 



COMMITTEE ON PERMANENT ORGANIZATION. 



Alabama — R. E. Spraggins. 
Arkansas — J. G. Wallace. 
California — J. V. Colman. 
Colorado — B. O. Sweeney. 
Connecticut — James Aldis. 
Delaware — B. L. Lewis. 
Florida — T. J. Appleyard. 
Georgia — G. Pope Brown. 
Idaho— J. C. Rich. 
Illinois — William Prentiss. 
Indiana — John Overmeyer. 
Iowa — Richard F. Jordan. 
Kansas — J. Mack Love. 
Kentucky — G. G. Gilbert. 
Louisiana — O. O. Provosty. 
Maine — Charles L. Snow. 
Maryland — Spencer C. Jones. 
Massachusetts — G. F. Maxwell. 
Michigan — L. H. Salisbury. 
Minnesota— John F. McGovern. 
Mississippi — H. Cassidy. 
Missouri— C. F. Cochran. 
Montana — Paul Fusz. 
Nebraska — J. C. Luikart. 
Nevada — P. J. Dunne. 
New Hampshire — G. Woodbury. 



New Jersey — George A. Helme.. 
New York — Fred'k R, Coudert. 
North Carolina — E. B. Jones. 
North Dakota — H. R. Hartman. 
Ohio — E. B, FiNLEY. 
Oregon — J. Welch. 
Pennsylvania — C. H. Noyes. 
Rhode Island — Jas. J. Van Alen. 
South Carolina — D. J. Bradham. 
South Dakota — Geo. H. Culver. 
Tennessee — E. W. Carmack. 
Texas — J. M. Duncan. 
Utah— Samuel R. Thurman. 
Vermont— Wells Valentine. 
Virginia — H. S. K. Morrison. 
Washington — James E. Fenton. 
West Virginia — E. D. Talbott. 
Wisconsin — James G. Flanders. 
Wyoming — T. Dyer. 
Alaska — Richard F. Lewis. 
Arizona — W. H. Burbage. 
Dist. of Columbia — F. P. Morgan. 
Indian Ter. — Wm. P. Thompson. 
New Mexico — W. S. Hopewell. 
Oklahoma — H. C. Brunt. 



committee on rules. 



Alabama — A. O. Lane. 
Arkansas — Charles Coffin. 
California — J. G. McGuire. 
Colorado — H. H. Seldomridge. 
Connecticut— Lyman T. Tangier. 
Delaware — John F. Saulsbury. 
Florida — F. B. Carter. 
Georgia — C. T. Zachry. 
Idaho — George V. Bryan. 
Illinois — George W. Fithian. 
Indiana — E. Henderson. 
Iowa — F. D. Bayless. 
Kansas— S. A. RiGGS. 
Kentucky — W. T. Ellis. 
Louisiana — S. T. Batrd. 
Maine — John Scott. 
Maryland — James W. McElroy. 
Massachusetts — S. K. Hamilton. 



Michigan — John B. Shipman. 
Minnesota — C. W. Schultz. 
Mississippi — H. D. Money. 
Missouri — David A. DeArmond. 
Montana— J. M. Fox. . 
Nebraska — W. D, Oldham. 
Nevada— J. W. Petty. 
New Hampshire — A. M. Blondin. 
New Jersey — Henry D. Winton. 
New York — Francis N. Scott. 
North Carolina — A. M. Waddell. 
North Dakota — J. B. Eaton. 
Ohio — Frank Harper. 
Oregon — J. D. McKennon. 
Pennsylvania — Chas. A. Fagan. 
Rhode Island — John S. Tucker. 
South Carolina — W. D. Evans. 
South Dakota — Edward Cook. 



Democratic National Convention. 



Ill 



Tennessee — J- 1^- Richardson. 
Texas— W. W. Gatewood. 
Utah— R. C. Chambers. 
Vermont — Wells Valentine. 
Virginia — Thomas E. Blakey. 
Washington— J. L. Sharpstein. 
West Virginia— J. W. St. Clair. 
Wisconsin— John J. Wood. 



Wyoming — T. Dyer. 
Alaska — Geo. R. Tingle. 
Arizona— Hugh E. Campbell. 
Dist. of Columbia — E. L. Jordan. 
Indian Ter. — E. Poe Harris. 
New Mexico— M. M. Salazar. 
Oklahoma — E. F. Mitchell. 



committee on resolutions. 



Alabama—JoHN H. Bankhead. 
Arkansas— J. K. Jones. 
California— Stephen M. White. 
Colorado— C. S. Thomas. 
Connecticut — Lynde Harrison. 
Delaware— George Gray. 
Florida— R. A. Davis. 
Georgia — Enan P. Howell. 
Idaho— B. N. Hillerd. 
Illinois — N. E. Worthington. 
Indiana — James McCabe. 
Iowa— J. S. Murphy. 
Kansas — J. D. McCleverty. 
Kentucky — P. W. Hardin. 
Louisiana — S. M. Robertson. 
Maine— C. V. Holman. 
Maryland — John Prentiss Poe. 
Massachusetts— J. E. Russell. 
Michigan — George P. Hummer. 
Minnesota — James E. O'Brien. 
Mississippi — J. Z. George. 
Missouri — F. M. Cockrell. 
Montana — E. D. Matts. 
Nebraska — ^W. J. Bryan. 
Nevada — T. W. Healy. 
New Hampshire — Irving W. Drew 



New Jersey — A. H. McDermott. 
New York— David B. Hill. 
North Carolina— E. J. Hale. 
North Dakota— W. N. Roach. 
Ohio — Allen W. Thurman. 
Oregon— M. A. Miller. 
Pennsylvania — R. E. Wright. 
Rhode Island — David S. Baker. 
South Carolina — B. R. Tillman. 
South Dakota— W. R. Steele. 
Tennessee — A. T. McNeil. 
Texas — John H. Reagan. 
Utah — J. L. Rawlins. 
Vermont — P. J. Farrell. 
Virginia — Carter Glass. 
Washington — R. C. McCroskey. 
West Virginia — W. M. Kincald. 
Wisconsin — William F. Vilas. 
Wyoming — C. W. Bramel. 
Alaska — Chas. D. Rogers. 
Arizona — W. H. Barnes. 
Dis. Columbia — R. E. Mattingly. 
Indian Territory — R.L. Owen. 
New Mexico — A. A. Jones. 
Oklahoma — M. L. Bixler. 



Hon. E. B. FiNLEY, of Ohio : The delegation from Ohio 
desires to enter its protest on behalf of the contesting dele- 
gates from South Dakota. They desire to enter their protest 
against any of the members now upon the roll being assigned 
to any committee until the contest is settled. 

The Chair : Any protest that is desired to be filed by 
the contesting delegation of South Dal?;ota will be received 
and referred to the Committee on Credentials unless the Con- 
vention desires otherwise. 



112 Official Proceedings of the 

General Fini.ey : The point I make is that they pro- 
test against those other delegates serving upon the respective 
committees pending the contest. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to say to the delegates 
from Ohio that the temporary organization of the Convention 
must recognize the temporary roll as furnished to it and 
accept it as prima facie correct. It cannot undertake to do 
anything about it except to refer it to the Committee on 
Credentials, which is according to the custom of Democratic 
conventions heretofore. 

Hon. Wm. Sulzer, of New York : I offer the following 
resolution and ask to have it referred to the Committee on 
Resolutions. 

The Chairman : The resolution of the gentleman from 
New York can only be considered by unanimous consent 
while other business is pending, but if there be no objection 
the resolution of the gentleman will be received and read. 
(Cries of *'No, no, no.") Objection is made to the reception 
of the resolution and it will not be read. 

Hon. S. M. White, of California : At the request of the 
Sergeant-at-Arms, I will announce that immediately upon a 
recess of the Convention the several Committees appointed 
will meet in the rooms to my right, in the direction to which 
I now point. All of the members of such Committees are 
requested to be prompt. 

On motion of Senator J. K. Jones, of Arkansas, the 
Convention adjourned until Wednesday, July 8th, 1896, 
at 9 o'clock A. M. 



Democratic National Convention. 113 



SBCOND DAY. 



MORNING SESSION. 



Chicago, July 8, 1896. 

The Convention was called to order at 10:47 A. m. by 
the Chairman, Hon. John W. Daniel, in the following 
words : 

The Chair : The Convention will be in order. The 
proceedings of the Convention \vill be opened with prayer 
by Rev. Thomas Edward Green, of Grace Episcopal Church, 
Cedar Rapids, Iowa. 

prayer. 

We praise Thee, oh Lord. We acknowledge Thee to be 
the Lord. All the earth dolh worship Thee, Father everlast- 
ing. We adore Thee as the King of nations, for by Thee they 
are and have their being. We worship Thee as the God of 
wisdom and truth, for of Thee cometh every good and perfect 
thing. We adore Thee as the great all-Father, for of one 
blood Thou hast made all peoples of the earth. Reveal Thy- 
self to us, we beseech Thee, alike as Creator, as Father and 
as Guide. Rule Thou over us, for Thou art mighty. Teach 
us, for Thou alone doth know the secret things of eternity. 
Still the voices of our contention, for Thou alone art infinite 
good. 

Especially grant Thy blessing, we beseech Thee, to this 
great convention, gathered together from all parts of our fair 
land. In the days that are gone Thou didst guide our fathers ; 
teach us, we pray Thee, their children. Oh, Thou, who alone 
canst rule the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, domi- 
nate our minds for good, for humanity and for God. And as 

8 



114 Official Proceedings op^ the 

these, Thy servants, meet for the high concerns of state, 
grant them wisdom, we beseech Thee, that that which they 
do may tell in the years to come for the advancement and the 
lifting up of our human kind. Save them from error, cleanse 
them from prejudice and passion, and may righteousness by 
their action triumph over wrong ; may liberty ever drive away 
oppression ; may virtue ever dominate darksome vice, and may 
Th}^ kingdom come and Thy will be done on earth, and so 
may the great true democracy, good of all people, the sub- 
lime philosophy of the Commoner of Nazareth everywhere 
prevail. May Thy blessing be upon us and upon our chil- 
dren, now and forever more, Amen. 

Secretary Sheerin announced that F. F. Stole, the 
Postmaster of the Convention, desired to say to the del- 
egates that if they wished to have their mail addressed to 
the Convention hall it will be delivered to them on the 
floor. There is a good deal of mail already in his hands 
addressed to persons in care of delegates, which could be 
obtained by calling at the Convention postoffice at the 
southeast end of the building. 

The Chair : The first business in order to-day is the 
reports of the committees. Are any of the committees ready 
to report ? No business can be conducted except by unan- 
imous consent until they report. .The Committee on Creden- 
tials. 

The Sergeant-at-Arms Martin reported that the Com- 
mittee on Credentials would meet at once in its room. 

Hon. John Martin, of Kansas : I move that a recess of 
five minutes be declared and that ex-Governor Hogg, of 
Texas, be requested to address the Convention. 

The motion was adopted. 

The Chair : Gentlemen of the Convention, I have the 
honor to present to you ex-Governor J. S. Hogg, of Texas. 

Mr. Hogg : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : This should be a proud occasion to every American 



Democratic National Convention. 115 

citizen. The Democrats, not the voters, but the Democrats 
of the United States, have gathered here upon a mission of 
importance to the great American people. We should con- 
duct our meeting, our Convention, in a spirit of friendliness, 
as brethren of the same family, with a full, fixed intent of 
winning the victory next November, The Democracy is a 
party of majorities. Unless the majority can rule then we 
must have the minority in control of our government, which 
in time will lead to centralism. We have more before us 
than a fight against our brethren who differ with us. We 
have a common enemy to contend with this fall, and- every 
Democrat in the United States should lay aside his personal 
feelings, his personal preferences, and march lockarmed with 
his rival brother in the common cause of American liberty 
against Republicanism. 

The Republican party to-day is again arraying itself in 
robes of glittering generalities, pleading for supremacy again 
in these United States. It is dealing in glittering generalities ; 
it is treating the people with a pledge of better behavior if it 
is trusted again. With one common refrain the great Amer- 
ican people next fall will reply to this great dissembler, this- 
great deceiver : "We will not try you again. Your train of 
iniquities has marked a black spot of shame across the Amer- 
ican escutcheon, and we, the people, will eradicate it if it 
takes fifty years of hard work. When we overthrew you four 
years ago we only clipped part of the top growth. We 
thought we were getting it all, but made a mistake which 
shall not be repeated. Now, we propose to dig you up, root 
and branch, and lay you out upon the hillside of despair, there 
to wither and rot and dry up and blow away forever." 

The American people cannot in self-respect tolerate this 
great class-courtier ; this masked coquetter, this great class- 
maker and mass smasher, this great bounty giver and poor- 
house maker, called the Republican party. Upon three 
grounds alone, to say nothing of other good and potent 
reasons, the people cannot and will not tolerate the return of 
the Republican party to power in this goyernment. Our fight 
now, my brethren, is not to be waged \vith one another, but 
with the common foe. If we will unite, we can carry con- 
sternation, disaster and defeat into the Republican ranks. The 



116 Official Proceedings of the 

three grounds upon which we cannot tolerate the Republican 
party, to say nothing of others, are these : 

First : It proposes to filter through the fingers of the 
rich men to the wageworker, under the pretext of taxation for 
revenue, the paltry stipends which they receive. 

Second : It proposes to give bounties from the public 
treasury to wealthy planters under the pretense of giving 
sugar to the poor. 

Third : It proposes to belittle Americanism and to assert 
the inability of the people of this government to control them- 
selves by yielding to the will of the crowned heads of other 
countries the regulation of our Federal finances. 

These are the basic principles upon which our government 
is to rest if this Republican party is returned to power. 
They forebode the usurpation of the rights of the masses, 
the constitutional rights of the great masses of people, to 
■make way for their beloved and favored few, who may have 
the time and the means of reorganizing our government into 
a centralism. These men to-day are aiming at the liberties 
of the great masses of people by suppressing their constitu- 
tional rights. 

For over thirty years this party of promises has been tell- 
ing the wage worker that the way for him to get rich and 
independent is for the government to first make the manufac- 
turer rich ; that by the process of protection wealth would 
How into the corporate treasuries and be paid out in high 
'wages. These people have to a great extent believed those 
promises, until they have found them to be shams, frauds and 
farces. The quintescence of that farcical practice has been 
governmental protection of the wealthy, with the laborer left 
to protect himself. He has done this through labor organiza- 
tions in part, without which his condition to-day would be 
that condition to which a man is reduced whenever he 
depends upon protection from any other source than himself, 
that condition of penury, of pauperism and of pity. 

This protected class of Republicans proposes now to 
destroy labor organizations. To that end it has organized 
syndicates, pools and trusts and proposes through Federal 
courts, in the exercise of their unconstitutional powers by the 
issuance of extraordinary, unconstitutional writs, to strike 



Democratic National Convention. 117 

down, to suppress and to overawe those organizations, backed 
by the Federal bayonet. My friends, when that day comes 
you will see the last bulwark of labor gone. You will see 
the exposure of this system of protection in all its criminal 
phases. You will see when that day comes this pampered 
pet of protectionism, standing like a colossal giant, with one 
hand in the Federal treasury, with the other upon the throat 
of the producer, proclaiming to the world the beauty of the 
bounty system called protection. 

You understand here what protection means as applied in 
its general form. Down South we know what it means 
applied to its special form, in its undisguised, its realistic, its 
true form, in the nature of a bounty, applied in the way of 
bounties upon sugar, bounties to those who are able themselves 
to protect themselves and to support themselves independent 
of any government. Under the Federal law passed by the 
Republican party under Republican rule the planter of the 
South who raised over five hundred pounds of sugar got from 
the public treasury two cents a pound, paid by the govern- 
ment in cash. You see the point? These men who run those 
plantations and got the bounty are the wealthiest planters in 
the Southland, and they are among our richest men. Many 
of them got from $10,000 to $100,000 a year in bounty, in 
addition to immense profits upon their great crops. Contrast 
those wealthy men, rolling in wealth, backed by the govern- 
ment under the sugar bounty system, ^vith those farmers 
who work day by day, from sunrise to sundown, and pay 
their taxes out of four cent cotton, fifteen cent corn and thirty 
cent wheat. 

My friends, in addition to the payment of that bounty then 
to a rich class of Democrats, the Republican party by that 
insidious method reduced and prostituted many of those poor 
creatures from Democracy into Republicanism. Do you catch 
the point. ^ When the Democratic party took that sugar 
teat out of the mouths of these .-.gricultural tax-eating govern- 
ment wards they bleated around like lost calves in a storm. 
They claimed they were bound to starve. Men ^vho lived 
there in their mansions and rolled in luxury were the only 
ones to get the benefit of this Republican bounty called pro- 
tection. 



118 Official Proceedings of the 

My friends, in 1893, to illustrate by giving you some facts 
and figures, the State of Texas owned and operated a sugar 
plantation of 2,100 acres by convict labor. In that year 
the aggregate amount of yield from the crop in money 
was $70,000. She was out in expenses $44,000. She received 
by way of net profit $26,000 upon that one sugar crop. Had 
she received the twenty odd thousand dollars tendered by the 
Federal government by way of sugar bounty her yield net 
would have been about double. She would not accept it ; she 
would not accept it because she would not stoop to such a 
crime against the American people. In her sovereign capac- 
ity she spurned the poisonous bait, hurled it back, and set the 
example of Democracy by the sovereign action of a sovereign 
State, in condemnation of the Republican poisonous bait 
aimed at the prostitution of the people. 

My friends, that sugar bounty is but a practical illustration 
of the protective system. Down there we have it thoroughly 
illustrated. We have seen it in all of its criminal phases ; we 
have seen it in its natural form ; we saw it before it got its 
clothes on ; we saw it as it came from the womb of Republic- 
anism ; we saw its deformities. We know its iniquities ; we 
know the slimy breath that hovers around its iniquitous form. 
My friends, these men who received the bounty from the Fed- 
eral treasury are rampant Republicans, intending in this cam- 
paign to contribute to the campaign corruption fund for the 
purpose of endeavoring to carry Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Iowa 
and Michigan, together with other agricultural states of the 
West, and thus to fasten upon the liberty-loving people of this 
country the festering, the putrid, the nauseating ulcer of the 
sugar bounty in the name of protection. 

If you people could see that thing in its pure, natural form 
you would say that it is the bastard mongrel of protection and 
crime, the very existence of which, the natural conception of 
which, and the corrupt existence of it here is a menace to the 
rights and liberties of a free people. With one tell swoop, by 
the terrible power of your ballots next fall, you will strike 
down the hideous monster and the whole corrupt family to 
which it belongs. 

This bounty protective system of RepublicaniGm has lost 
that great party its moorings, has forced it to surrender its 



Democratic National Convention. 119 

independence and to confess the inability of the American 
people to govern themselves. It has caused them to bow 
down before foreign powers, to confess that the people of the 
United States are incapable of self-government. It is the 
quintescence of Republicanism, it is the capstone of their 
crime, leading them on to confess the inability of the Amer- 
ican people to manage their own affairs. 

My friends, when I say that, I wish to call your attention to 
the proof. Read what they said in their St. Louis platform, 
and if what I charged is not supported by the proof I will 
confess myself an ignoramus, unable to understand plaifi Eng- 
lish. Here is what they said upon the money question at St. 
Louis : " We are opposed to the free coinage of silver, except 
by international agreement with the leading commercial 
nations of the world, and until such agreement the existing 
gold standard must be continued." Perforce therefore this 
Republican party admits that the gold standard is not the 
best, but that it cannot change it, except by the consent of the 
foreign powers. 

Why did not that Republican party come out like men and 
say that the gold standard is the best for the American peo- 
ple ? Why say that until they can have an international agree- 
ment, the present gold standard must be maintained? Why 
say in terms that they would agree to free silver coinage on 
an equality with gold provided they could get the consent of 
foreign pov/ers.^ My friends, are you Americans, or are you 
truckling sycophants, winning smiles from foreign crowned 
heads.? 

Yes, we will agree to free silver, provided the foreign 
nations ' enter into the agreement with us. That "if," so 
iTiountain high, is the obstruction which makes the American 
people, according to the Republican doctrine, dependent 
upon the consent of foreign powers. Why should that great 
party confess ^vhat political philosophers have for many years 
contended, that the American people were incapable of self- 
government — that this republic is a failure ? Why humiliate 
the proud American spirit of our fathers by this false, this 
useless, this criminal confession, that our people are not able 
to run their own financial system without the consent of 
crowned heads? 



120 Official Proceedings of the 

My friends, look and turn back four annual leaves in the 
history of our country and see what this Republican party 
then stated as its principles and demands upon the money 
question. I will read to you the platform adopted at Minne- 
apolis by the Republican party June 10, 1892. Read it, boys; 
it is mighty good. "The American people from tradition 
and interest favor bimetallism ; and the Republican party 
demands the use of both gold and silver as the standard 
money, with such restrictions and under such provisions, to 
be determined by legislation, as will secure the maintenance of 
the parity of values of the two metals so that the purchasing 
or paying power of a dollar, whether of silver or gold or 
paper, shall be at all times equal." 

Then those protection-promising, bounty-paying Repub- 
licans declared that it was the interest of the American people, 
that it was their tradition and their right to have a standard 
money, consisting of gold and silver, upon equal terms. Then 
they wanted a bim.etallic system, consisting of gold and silver; 
but now they want a single standard consisting of gold alone. 
Then they declared that every tradition and every interest 
of the American people, through the Republican party, 
demanded both gold and silver. This year they do not declare 
what is to the interest of the American people, but they pin 
the United States to the destinies of foreign powers controlled 
and operated by kings and princes, and propose to pledge this 
people, body and soul, purse and pride, to their will, to their 
edict, to their commands and to their laws. 

My friends, the Republican party of to-day stands forth 
the first time in the history of the American government as a 
confessor of the weakness of the American peo2:)le, of the 
inability of the people to manage their own affairs, and before 
the civilized world they carried humiliation into the heart of 
every liberty-loving, tory-hating American on this continent. 
It is the quintescence of Republicanism ; it is the work of 
those men who have gone abroad too rich to remain Amer- 
icans as the titled lords in the role of haunting and fawning, 
bending their nimble forms obsequiously before crowned 
heads, and returning here to the American people in their 
convention for the purpose of teaching them how to construct 
their platforms upon which the independent foreign-hating — 



Democratic National Convention. 121 

I take that word back — crown-hating, American people shall 
stand and conduct their affairs. Then, my friends, take the 
three planks of the Republican party platform as a declaration 
that the American people cannot attend to their own affairs^ 
but we, as a united Democracy, whatever the will of the Con- 
vention may be and whatever ticket may be placed upon the 
platform, will march on and throw into their faces the defiance 
of a people, who, when contending for their liberty a hundred 
years ago, were able even in their swaddling clothes to with- 
stand the onset of every foreign power, and to assert our ability 
to run our own affairs, according to our own will, without the 
interference of foreign influences and foreign powers. 

I thank you for your kind attention and will not detain 
you any longer, and when this Convention is through, let us 
go home and heal the sores that have been inflicted, and join 
hands and march on v^^ith the grand army of independence of 
the American people under the common flag, followed by our 
fathers, to the victory that I am sure awaits us ; and without 
the interference of foreign influences from any quarter ; and 
we will say to all such, " Hands off." 

The Chair : I desire to announce that any member of 
the Committee on Credentials now on the floor will please step 
to the Committee room at the right, his presence there being 
requested. We are now in recess, but whenever the Conven- 
tion desires to proceed with its business, of course it may do 
so ; but it can only do so when the Credentials Committee ha& 
reported. The Chair will declare the Convention in session 
and recognize the gentleman from Mississippi, Mr. Money. 

Hon. H. D. Money, of Mississippi : I move that Senator 
Blackburn, of Kentucky, be invited to address the Conven- 
tion during the period of v^aiting. 

This motion was adopted. 

The Chair: Gentlemen of the Convention, I present 
Senator J. C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky. 

Senator Blackburn : Mr. Chairman and Fellow Demo- 
crats : The Democratic party of America is gathered here to 
do an important work. The Democratic paityof the country 



122 Official Pkoceedings of the 

is to-day in session charged with a grave duty. The Amer- 
ican people, by a vast majority, believe that they are needlessly 
suffering to-day. The majority of the American people look 
to this Convention to correct its grievances and to right its 
wrongs. You have opened this campaign in splendid style. 
State by State you have swept over the skirmish line. You 
have come here instructed by an overwhelming majority of 
your party, of your people. There can be no doubt as to 
where your duty lies. You are here to meet the reasonable 
expectations of your people. They did not need to be told, 
because they know that they are to-day the victims of vicious, 
deliberate, unjust legislation. They know, and they have 
instructed you to declare, that they will no longer tamely 
submit to the class legislation under which they have groaned 
for the last twenty years. 

They have not sent you here to quarrel among your- 
selves. We, those who think as we do, have already proved 
that the people are at our backs. Let us take no action that 
is not tempered with the full measure of fairness. Let us 
declare to the ^vorld ^vhat it is that we approve and what we 
disapprove. Let us promulgate a platform that neither human 
nor devilish ingenuity can subject to but one construction. 
Let us declare that we are here to promulgate a platform 
which shall be in line and in consonance with the oft-repeated 
declarations of our party, and a platform that shall not obscure 
nor deflect public attention from the one main issue upon 
^vhich this contest is tO turn. 

Let us declare what we approve and what we disapprove, 
that we want to unlock the doors of the American mint ; that 
we mean to put silver back where it was in 1873, that \ve 
mean the unrestricted, the unlimited free coinage of both gold 
and silver on even terms without discrimination, and without 
the slightest regard to action of any other power on this earth. 
Let us declare further, my countrymen, that the Democratic 
party does not approve of the issuance of coin bonds in times of 
profound peace. Let us declare, further, that we do not 
approve of giving the right of option to the man who holds 
the obligation, but reserve it to the man who has to pay the 
debt. Let us declare, further, that we do not approve, but 
w^e denounce and we condemn the proposition to retire the non- 



Democratic National Committee. 123 

interest bearing legal tender greenbacks and treasury note 
paper of this country. Let us declare, further, that we are 
not in favor of perpetuating either a national debt or a national 
banking system. 

My countrymen, you cannot persuade the American people 
to believe that the depressed condition of their industries is not 
the result of vicious legislation. You cannot make them believe 
that the fires have gone out in their furnaces, that the spindle 
has ceased to hum in the factory, that the farmer is no longer 
able to get the cost of production for the products of his sweat 
and toil. You cannot make them believe that while an army 
of more than a million of unemployed laborers is to-day 
tramping the highways of your country, and yet make them 
believe that the laws under which they live have been equit- 
able and fair. They know better. The American people 
know, and you had as well voice the knowledge, they know 
that Christ with a lash drove from the temple a better set of 
TQen than those who for twenty years have shaped the finan- 
cial policy of this country. 

These, my countrymen, it seems to me, are the duties that 
devolve upon this great Democratic gathering. The eyes of 
the country, the eyes of the ^vorld, rest fixed and centered 
upon this hall of assembled Democrats. If fair dealing is to 
be restored, if prosperity it to be brought back to take 
the place of poverty, if happiness is to be given to the 
American people, if free institutions are to feel safe, protected 
and anchored in the hearts of our people, it will only be 
w^hen the banner under which you gather here once more 
floats out in proud triumph from the dome of our country's 
capitol. It is in your hands to give this boon to the Ameri- 
can people. Be temperate, be conservative, but be manly 
and be brave. Do not fail to gather the fruits of the splendid 
victory that you have already so splendidly inaugurated. You 
have carried the skirmish line, but the inner citadel is to be 
contested for in November. Let us do nothing except with 
an honest effort to voice the sentiment of the people behind 
us. Appeal to every Democrat, whether he be with the ma- 
jority or the minority, whether he is for a single standard or 
for a double standard, in God's name let him remember that 
he is a Democrat still. 



124 Official Proceedings of the 

My countrymen, I can but express this hope, coupled with 
the firm conviction, for, next to the revealed truths of the Chris- 
tian religion, I pin my faith to the principles and the loyalty 
of my party. Remember, my countrymen, for twenty years 
we have waged this fight, unawed by power, stubbornly con- 
testing every inch of ground, and now we are on the eve of 
the fruition of our hopes. A brighter day is dawning, and 
through its effulgence as it breaks upon us vs^e read, without 
doubt or uncertainty, the restoration of Democracy to power. 
By all the splendid traditions that gather about that party, by 
the hopes that nerve us for the future, appealing to your cour- 
age, and to your love of country, I beg you, my fellow Demo- 
crats, make a platform that shall tell the truth, and rally as 
one man to vindicate its utterance. 

The Chair : No business will be transacted in the midst 
of noise and confusion. Nothing can be done in this Con- 
vention if this immense audience insists upon obstructing its 
proceedings. 

Hon. J. D. Richardson, of Tennessee : I move that the 
Convention take a recess for thirty minutes. 

This motion was lost. 

Mr. R. H. Henry, of Mississippi : I move that Hon. 
W. J. Bryan, of Nebraska, be invited to address the Con- 
vention. 

This motion was adopted; but it was ascertained that 
Mr. Bryan was not present. 

Hon. A. W. Hope, of Illinois : I move that Gov. Alt- 
geld be invited to address the Convention. 

This motion was adopted; but Gov. Altgeld, standing' 
upon his chair, declined to speak, and asked that Gov. Hill 
be given an opportunity to address the Convention. 

Hon. N. M. Bell, of Missouri : I move that David Over- 
meyer, of Kansas, be invited to address the Convention. 

This motion was adopted. 



Democratic National Convention. 125 

The Chair : The Chair desires to state that the dis- 
tinguished gentleman from New York, who has been called 
for so often, is upon the Committee on Resolutions, and is 
not here. I present Mr. Overmeybr. 

Mr. OvERMEYER : Mr. President and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : This is not the time at which I desire to say 
anything to this vast audience. The duties which may de- 
volve upon me later may require me to say something to you. 
All I care to say now is that yesterday the seat of empire ^vas 
transferred from the Atlantic States to the great Mississippi 
Valley. That the day of the common people has dawned. 
The State of Kapsas, the great State of Kansas, on whose 
shining crest is written liberty, on whose fair escutcheon is 
graven the words, " ad astra per aspei'a^^'' stands here to w^el- 
come its friends from the South and from the Northern States 
to redeem this good land and turn it back to the way of pros- 
perity and greatness, and to begin the good work by restoring 
the dollar of the daddies, 16 to 1. 

Hon. L. T. Genung, of Iowa : I move that Gov. Ai-t- 
GELD be requested to address this Convention. 

lis motion was adopted. 

The Chair : I present Governor Altgeld, of Illinois. 

Governor Altgeld : Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of 
this Convention : I did not come here to make speeches, I 
came here to assist in nominating the next President of these 
United States, I came here to assist in formulating a declara- 
tion of principles that shall again offer hope to our people. 

Rarely in the history of govermnent has an assembly of 
free men been confronted with the far-reaching questions, with 
questions that are fraught with so much of weal or woe to 
human kind, as those questions with which this Convention 
must deal. For a number of years there has existed in Europe 
and this country stagnation in trade, paralysis in industry and 
a suspension of enterprise. We have seen the streets of our 
cities filled with idle men, with hungry women and with rag- 
ged children. The country to-day looks to the deliberations 
of this Convention to promise some form of relief. In order 



126 Official Proceedings of the 

to deal intelligently with these unhappy conditions, it is nec^ 
essary to glance for a, moment at the cause which produced 
them. 

During the decade which followed the civil war we became 
the great debtor people of the earth. Everything from the 
government down to the sewing machine of the seamtress, was 
mortgaged. There was the great national, state, city, county 
and other municipal debts. There were the great railroad and 
other corporation debts. There were the farm and city mort- 
gages, the great private indebtedness, all amounting to thou- 
sands of millions of dollars, and nearly all held by English 
money lenders. The interest on this great indebtedness had 
to be paid every year out of the toil of our ipeople, but under 
the conditions as they then existed we met those payments 
and our people had a surplus. They were able to, in addition,, 
supply themselves with the necessaries and comforts and even 
the luxuries of life. As a consequence the farmer prospered, 
the manufacturer prospered and labor was employed. But 
unhappily for the world the large security-holding classes con- 
ceived the idea that it would be to their interest to make money 
dear and property and labor cheap. It being an immutable 
law of finance that when you increase the volume of money 
in the world you increase the selling price of property and 
things, so, on the other hand, when you reduce the volume of 
money in the world you reduce the selling price of property 
and of labor. 

These gentlemen then determined to destroy one-half of 
the money of the world, and between 1878 and 1890 they got 
our government and the governments of Europe to strike 
down silver. They demonetized it, they stopped its coinage, 
they took away its legal tender functions, they reduced it to 
the position of token money, where it was used at all. The 
effect of this was to double the burden that was put upon gold. 
Formerly, the two metals together did the work of the busi- 
ness world. After that time, the one metal alone had to do- 
all the business of the world. Consequently, the number of 
people who had to have it was doubled. It was doubled irt 
importance, and its purchasing power was doubled, so that 
thereafter the gold dollar bought tw^ice as much labor, twice as 
much property, twice as much of the bread and sweat of 



Democratic National Convention. 12T 

mankind as it did before. Not only this but tliey reduced by 
one-half the annual addition to the stock of money of the 
world. Formerly there was added every year all of the gold 
to the world's stock of primary or redemption money. Since 
that time there is added every year only the gold of the 
world, so that we have a constantly shrinking standard of 
value with a constantly increasing population, which means a 
constantly decreasing scale of prices. 

Now, when these great debts were created the world's 
standard and the world's measure of values consisted practi- 
cally as one. They formed the standard of prices. To-day 
the standard of prices consists of only one metal and it is only 
half as high as it was when it consisted of the two, and as a 
consequence prices to-day are only half as high as they were 
when we had two metals. What has been the result? Why,. 
my fellow citizens, to-day it takes all that the farmer, all that 
the producer can scrape together to pay these fixed charges ;. 
all that he can get to pay interest, taxes and other fixed 
charges; for, mind you, this great debt was not reduced, in- 
terest was not reduced, taxes were not reduced. On the con- 
trary, they are higher than they were, and as a result our 
American market has been destroyed. The farmer now can- 
not buy as much at the store as he formerly could. The re- 
sult is that the farmer is prostrated, the merchant does les& 
business, the railroads do less business, the manufacturer can- 
not sell his product and the laborer finds that there is nobody 
to buy the things that he makes and he is out of employments 

Now, the question is, shall we continue this system or 
shall we go back to w^here we were? Gentlemen, we are sug- 
gesting nothing new, we are suggesting no experiments ; we 
are siinply declaring that when you pay a creditor in the same 
kind of money which he gave you, you are doing everything 
that God or man could demand at your hand. Now, gentle- 
men, those foreign people, those English money lenders, they 
gave us gold and silver, and we propose to pay them back in 
the same money which they gave us. Let me say to you that 
the statement that silver has fallen is not sustained by the 
facts. A pound of silver to-day buys as much wheat, buys as 
much cotton, buys as much property of every kind, and buys- 
as much as it did when we got that money. It is gold, the 



128 Official Proceedings of the 

gold dollar, that has gone up to where it buys twice as much 
as it then did. Now, these debts, my fellow citizens, cannot 
be paid for centuries, and shall we now declare that our peo- 
ple must go on paying interest, paying principal, with 200- 
cent dollars, or shall we go back and say we will pay in 100- 
cent dollars? That is the great question before this Con- 
vention. 

But these English money lenders and their American 
agents and representatives do not intend to give up the advan- 
tage they have gained. They are making a determined fight. 
Two weeks ago they went to St. Louis and they took charge 
of the Republican Convention, an assembly that will go into 
history as Mr. Hanna's trust. At that Convention Mr. 
Hanna nominated a candidate for President, a candidate 
with one idea, and that idea wrong. That Convention 
declared in favor of the present single standard of English 
gold, a standard which the London newspapers have compli- 
mented. They are delighted with it. An Englishman 
always feels good when he sees a prospect of getting more 
sweat and more blood out of the American people. To be 
sure, they said something about a tariff in that platform ; but 
the moneyed people cared nothing about that ; they knew that 
w^as simply a little dough intended to hide the hook. 

Then, after they had harnessed the Republican party to the 
English cart, the other members of the firm are here trying to 
put the same English halter upon this Convention. Are you 
going to allow them to do it? 

What are the arguments that you have heard around your 
hotels and headquarters? You noticed some wrecks ago these 
Eastern people declared they would have nothing on earth 
but a single gold standard ; but when they found that the peo- 
ple were against them, when they found that the Democracy 
of this country would not tolerate it, then they were willing 
to modify their demands. They have come on here and are 
talking compromise. " Get together and agree upon some- 
thing that we can all accede to and indorse." We are to do 
as w^e have done in the past ; we are to adopt a declaration of 
principles which will not mean one thing to one man and 
another thing to another man ; which will not mean one 
thing in one section of the country and another thing in 



Democratic National Convention. 129 

another section, but which will mean exactly what we say it 
shall be. We will not adopt a platform which will enable 
these people to maintain a single gold standard. 

These forces are powerful. They, the large banks in the 
East control nearly all the banks through the country, so that 
a few bankers in London and New York control the whole 
banking system in this country now. They control all of the 
newspapers, all of the agencies that formulate thought, and 
we have recently had something like a money terrorism. Any- 
one who did not subscribe to their wishes was threatened with 
social, financial and political death. Catch phrasds are 
invented. There was a time in the history of the world when 
men and women were slaughtered in the name of liberty. We 
have seen a time when a great nation can be robbed in the 
name of an honest dollar. There are men who otherwise are 
intelligent and seem patriotic, who claim that they love their 
country, and yet who are doing all they can to fasten this 
English system upon our people. Now, my fellow citizens, 
shall we in this Convention stand squarely for principles, or 
«hall we straddle.? Shall we dodge? Shall we put ourselves 
in the position of the steer which had jumped part way over 
the fence and could neither hook before nor kick behind? 

Now, gentlemen, there is a prime principle involved here 
that rises above vote-getting, that rises above office-getting, a 
principle that affects the welfare of a great nation. In 1776 
the question was, shall republican institutions be established 
in America? In 1890 the question is, shall republican insti- 
tutions be perpetuated in America? Or shall we make the 
great toilers and producers of this country mere vassals, mere 
tribute-paying serfs to English capitalists? That is the ques- 
tion, my fellow citizens. England devours the substance of 
Ireland. She gathers the harvest in the valley of the Nile ; 
she has carried av^ay the riches of India; she has ravished the 
islands of the sea ; she has drawn the life-blood out of every 
people that have ever come under her domination. Shall this 
mighty nation, after w^e have triumphed over British armies 
upon land, after we have destroyed English fleets upon the 
^vaters, after we have triumphed upon every field of honor 
and field of glory, shall we now supinely surrender to English 

greed, English cunning and corruption? 
9 



130 Official Proceedings of the 

My fellow citizens, we must make no mistakes. Our peo- 
ple are in earnest. They will have neither straddling on 
platform nor straddling on candidate, and those prudent, cau- 
tious, ^vise gentlemen who have to consult the tin roosters 
every morning to see what their opinion should be during the 
day shall have no show in this Convention. We must have 
a declaration of principles which will admit of no quibbles. 

We must have a declaration of principles that will mean 
the same thing on the mountain, in the valley and at the sea- 
shores. We must have a declaration of principles that we can 
hold up before all Israel and the sun. 

Gentlemen, it is not the time of compromise. It is a time 
to be serious, because the question is serious. It involves the 
future of our country. If the present standard of values, the 
present standard of prices, is to be maintained, then the great 
producing classes of this country will be devoured by the fixed 
charges. They will have no money to buy the comforts of 
life. They will have no money to educate their families.. 
We must return to, we must resurrect the standard that ex- 
isted when these debts were created. It is not a question that 
can be compromised. Compromise is proper when it involves 
only personal interest, but not when the interests of a great 
nation are at stake. 

Gentlemen, just see how history repeats itself. In 1776 
the money classes of the East in our country were opposed to 
the Declaration of Independence. They represented foreign 
interests, and they talked compromise. In 1861 the money 
classes of the East were opposed to making great sacrifices to 
maintain the Union. They talked compromise. In 1896 the 
same interests are again represented, and they talk compro- 
mise. 

My fellow citizens, the hand of compromise never yet ran 
up the flag of freedom. The spirit of compromise never yet 
laid the foundations of republican institutions. No compro- 
mise army ever fought the battles of liberty. Go search the 
hundred thousand graves found on hilltop, found in forests 
and in fields, where sleep the men who died to uphold 
this flag, and you w^ill not find the bones of a single man who 
talked compromise. They stood erect and said to the: 
Almighty, "Here are our lives." 



Democratic National Convention. 181 

Gentlemen, the time has come when the Democratic party 
must announce to the world that we stand for great principles 
— that we stand for those principles that offer hope to human- 
ity, and here are our lives to defend them. And if this Con- 
vention will rise to the occasion, as I believe it will — if this 
Convention will rise to meet the needs of a great people, then, 
gentlemen, our morning will be wrapped in splendor. If we 
do that, then the ides of November will usher in a new cent- 
ury of prosperity, of industry, of enterprise and of happiness. 
It will usher in a century which in grandeur and in glory will 
surpass any of those that have gone before. 

Gentlemen, I thank you very much. 

Hon. W. A. Jones : I move that Hon. George F. 
Williams, of Massachusetts, be invited to address this Con- 
vention. 

The Chair : The Committee on Credentials will meet 
in the committee room at once. 

I present Hon. George F. Williams. 

Mr. Williams : Fellow Democrats of the Union of the 
United States: This is not a sectional Convention. The 
battle which is now opened is a battle for the restoration 
of the union ot the States. There has been no transfer 
of the seat of empire from the Atlantic to' the Missis- 
sippi. The seat of empire is where it always has been, and I 
pray that it may always be in the logging camp of Maine, in 
the tobacco fields of Virginia, the orange groves of Florida, 
the plantations of Louisiana, the wheat fields of the West and 
the mining camps of California. I believe, fellow Democrats, 
that the interests of New England are represented here as well 
as the interests of the South and West. 

The contest in this cause that I wish to make is in behalf 
of the honest capital of New England and in behalf of the five 
million spindles that are now silent. We have seen the pro- 
cess going on w^hich has created the talk of sectionalism, 
against which I protest. Under the existing system which 
this Convention will condemn, first, our customers have been 
ruined; — the farmers of the West and the South. Then the 
railroads into which we put our honest earnings have been 



132 Official Proceedings of the 

Tuined, and we have finally come down on our knees to you. 
It is to rescue the honest investments of every man in the 
United States that we are here to-day. 

I beg you, gentlemen, not to utter another word of section- 
alism in this campaign. Let me assume that I am somewhat 
a representative of the real capitalist of New England — the 
man who leads a life of honest toil to make what money he 
can to support himself and those upon whom he is depend- 
ent. (Laughter.) 

Of course I suppose I should have said those who are depend- 
ent upon him, but I think I may be able to show that my prop- 
osition is not exactly absurd. I have been aware that my cap- 
ital, my honest earnings, have been dependent upon the railway 
manager and the corporation organizer, and I have seen my 
earnings go out with the earnings of the people of the West 
into the hands of dishonest capital. The watered stock of the 
-corporation has done as much harm to the East as anything 
■else. This, gentlemen, is not sectional, and I trust before this 
campaign is over that New England will join in this great 
movement not to transfer the seat of empire from one section 
to the other but to transfer the control of the United States 
Treasury and the money of everym an here from the magnates 
of Lombard street in London to the honest people of the 
United States. 

The Chair : We now have before us the report of the 
Committee on Credentials ; not complete, I am told, but never- 
theless as far as it has been prepared it will be presented to 
the Convention. 

I present Hon. J. H. Atwood, of Kansas, the Chairman 
of the Committee. 

Mr. Atwood : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : Your Committee upon Credentials begs leave to 
present the following partial report : 

1. It is respectfully recommended that the National Dem- 
ocratic Convention take action to the end of granting to each 
of the Territories and to the District of Columbia six votes as 
representation in this body. This conclusion was arrived at 
after considerable discussion, but the great majority of your 



Democratic National Convention. 188 

Committee deem it proper to embody this recommendation in 
this, their partial report. 

2. After a careful and painstaking comparison of the 
original and official credentials with the list of delegates and 
alternates as prepared by the secretary of the National Execu- 
tive Committee, your Committee begs leave to report that it 
finds its roster or roll of names correct with the exception of 
those names appearing thereon as delegates and alternates 
from the States of Nebraska and Michigan. 

Relative to the contest from Nebraska, your Committee 
begs leave to report that after a careful examination of the 
testimony presented to your Committee and after a full hear- 
ing from the respective parties, a careful consideration of their 
several arguments, your Committee finds and begs leave to 
report that the delegates and alternates headed bv William J. 
Bryan, of Nebraska, are entitled to seats in this Convention 
as delegates and alternates. With your leave, Mr. Chairman, 
I will refrain from reading the complete list. It is in the hands 
of the Committee. 

In regard to the contest from the State of Michigan, your 
Committee is not ready to report and asks further time for 
the consideration of the same. 

And now, Mr. Chairman, before I move the adoption of 
this partial report, I desire to present, by the direction of the 
committee of which I am the official head, this request : The 
tickets assigned to the State of Nebraska have been received 
by those gentlemen who now occupy seats in this Convention 
as the representatives of that state, and your Committee de- 
sires, if this Convention will do so, to have the Sergeant-at- 
Arms directed to supply the newly seated delegates and alter- 
nates Avith their full quota of tickets, and in the event of"^this 
being impossible, that some substitute therefor that will 
assure them admission into the assemblage here shall be pro- 
vided. With this explanation and suggestion, I move the 
adoption of the report. 

The Chair : I present Hon. T. J. Mahoney, of Ne- 
braska. 

Mr. Mahoney : Mr. Chairman, in view of the fact that 
prior to the reception of the Committee's partial report the 



184 • Official Proceedings of the 

sitting delegation from Nebraska lias received a notice from 
the officers of this Convention that seats have been provided 
for them in the rear, we will save the Convention the time of 
taking a roll upon this report, and those who are to occupy 
our seats can have our tickets if they desire them. We will 
proceed to occupy the seats so kindly provided in advance of 
the report by the officers of the Convention. 

The Chairman thereupon put the question upon the 
adoption of the partial report, and declared it adopted. 

Hon. John E. Russell, of Massachusetts : We respect- 
fuU}'- doubt the vote, and ask for a call of the roll of the states- 

Hon. T. W. Blake, of Texas: I make the point of 
order that he cannot call for a division after the result of the 
vote had been announced. 

The Chair : The Chair did declare the result, but it is 
the opinion of the Chair that the point of order ought not to 
be made, and that a roll call, if demanded, as this has been, 
by a considerable number of this Convention, should be 
accorded and the Chair w^ill so rule. Unless the house reverses 
his decision the roll will be called. 

Mr. Atwood : I wish to state for the information of the 
Convention, that the report upon the matter from Nebraska 
was unanimous; New York, Massachusetts and everyone 
voted for it. 

Mr. Russell: I withdraw my motion. 

The Chair : Mr. Russell withdraws his motion for a 
call of the roll. The result as announced will stand. The 
Chair has been informed that there are alternates who are oc- 
cupying the seats of delegates, and the Chair is also notified 
that the delegates are too modest to ask the alternates to step 
aside. The Chair has no such scruples, and the alternates are 
requested to permit the delegates to take their seats. 

Mr. Marston, of Louisiana : I move that Senator Till- 
man, of South Carolina, be requested to address the Con- 
vention. 



Democratic National Convention. 135 

This motion was adopted; but Mr. Tillman was not 
present. 

Gov. Altgeld : I move, Mr. Chairman, that this Conven- 
tion take a recess until 5 o'clock p. m. in order to enable the 
Committee on Credentials to make its report. 

The Chair : The Chair will state that upon consulting 
with the Committee on Credentials it has become manifest that 
no report will be presented for some time. This motion is 
the result of an examination into that condition. 

Mr. E. B. FiNLEv, of Ohio : I move, Mr. Chairman, as 
a substitute for that motion, that the Committee on Perma- 
nent Organization be now allowed to make its report, and that 
this Convention proceed to permanently organize and pro- 
ceed in the transaction of its business, and that w^e dispose of 
the report of the Coinmittee on Credentials later on. 

The Chair : The Chair will rule that, as there is no 
recognized roll showing who are members of this Convention, 
there can be no permanent organization or declaration of 
party principles until the membership of the Convention is first 
settled. The question now is upon the motion of the gentle- 
man from Illinois to adjourn. 

The motion was adopted and the convention took a re- 
cess until 5 o'clock p. M. 



136 Official Proceedings of the 



SECOND DAY. 



EVENING SESSION. 



Chicago, III. , July 8, 1896. 

The Chairman (Senator White) called the Convention 
to order at 5:45 p. M. in the following words: 

The Chair : The Convention will please come to order, 
the gentlemen will take their seats. The Committee on Cre- 
dentials is now ready to report. I present Hon. J. H. Atwood, 
of Nebraska. 

Mr. Atwood : A majority of your Committee on Creden- 
tials beg leave to complete the report of the Committee made 
heretofore and respectfully submit and report that after a care- 
ful examination and consideration of the record and evidence 
submitted to it, respectively by the contestants and contestees 
it has concluded and recommends : 

1. That the contesting delegates from the Fourth Con- 
gresional district of Michigan be seated and recognized as dele- 
gates to this Convention. Said delegates are Henry Chamber- 
lain and Hannibal Hart. 

2. That the contesting delegates from the Ninth Congres- 
sional district of Michigan, to wit : H. J. Hoyt and J. S. 
White, be seated and recognized as delegates from said dis- 
trict. 

8. That the remaining delegates as they appear on the 
temporary roll of the Convention remain seated as delegates. 

Hon. John C. Crosby, of Massachusetts : Mr. Chairman 
and Gentlemen of the Convention : Representing eighteen 
States in this Convention, I desire to move an amendment to 



Democratic National Convention. 187 

the report of the Committee, which has just been submitted to 
the Convention. I move, sir, that the delegations from the 
Fourth district and the Ninth district of Michigan be entitled 
to keep the seats which they now occupy. The matter of this 
discussion has lasted through yesterday, nearly all night and 
most of the day, and after a careful consideration of the merits 
of this Michigan case, we of the minority feel that if this report 
is accepted and adopted, it means one of the greatest injustices 
that could be perpetrated upon any Convention. 

Mr. Chairman, the Convention which met in the State of 
Michigan in April last consisted of about 800 delegates. 
There w^as not a single contest as to a single delegate to that 
Convention. There was a unanimous report, and after that 
report had been made these delegates were elected. They were 
elected in accordance with the law of the State of Michigan, 
and there was not the slightest question made, or contest or 
challenge made as to the legality or the validity of the election 
of those delegates. I may say further there is not, whatever 
may be said to the contrary, there is not the slightest evidence 
that there was any fraud on the part of anybody. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, all we want — all those of us who 
represent the minority want — is fair and decent treatment at 
your hands. We do not attempt or desire to overrule the 
majority here, but we do wish to have a fair and just discus- 
sion and consideration of this matter, and so, Mr. Chairman, 
I move that this amendment may be adopted, and I trust that 
the honest sentiment of the Convention will give to these sit- 
ting delegates the seats which they now occupy. 

The Chair then recognized Hon. John L. Brennan, of 
Wisconsin. 

Mr. Brennan : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I do not desire to submit to this Convention an 
argument on this question ; but so that you may vote intelli- 
gently, I would like to state for you the exact question that 
was submitted. The Committee on Credentials has reported 
to this Convention that they will seat the present delegates- 
at-large from Michigan, headed by Mr. Stevenson. They 
also have reported to this Convention that they will seat 



138 Official Proceedings of the 

the contestants from the Fourth and Ninth districts — four to 
be seated that have their seats in the Convention now, and 
four contestants from the districts to be seated. This is the 
majority report. The minority submits a report that the four 
delegates from the districts remain, and tlie contests with ref- 
erence to the districts be disallowed. The question recurs 
upon the amendment and will be submitted in that form. 

The Committee on Credentials has had a long session, and 
has gone over all the facts in the case very carefully. We of 
the minority, believing and relying upon the future of this 
country, as embraced in the principles of the Democratic party, 
fear the result of the action of the majority of the Committee 
oa Credentials. The State of Michigan elects its delegates 
from the districts, the districts recommending to the State 
Convention the names only. 

With reference to the Ninth district two names were pro- 
posed and were voted upon in that Convention, and there is 
no record submitted by the secretary of that Convention that 
there was any protest entered there, and it was there that 
they should have had their fight, and not here. There is no 
precedent for National conventions except each recurring 
convention every four years, and we are making precedents 
every minute of our time to-day, and this will establish a pre- 
cedent that a majority in the first flush of enthusiasm may go 
into a sovereign state and overturn the will of its people in 
order that their friends may have a seat in this Convention. 

Gentlemen of the Convention, in my judgment, after list- 
ening to the evidence submitted to the Committee on Creden- 
tials, it rests upon glittering generalities and conclusions. 
Facts are what you v^ant. There was a convention in Detroit 
of 900 Democrats. It was a big, large, unwieldy gathering. 
There is no record in the newspapers that any exception was 
taken at the time. None was submitted to me as a member 
of the Committee on Credentials. I have concluded from the 
•evidence that this contest originated three or four weeks ago, 
when it was ascertained that this Convention would be ruled 
by a certain majority, and I have become acquainted with 
that majority, and I appeal to its honesty and fairness not to 
let it pass. 



Democratic National Convention. 139 

The Chair then recognized Hon. S. M. Taylor, a dele- 
gate from Arkansas. 

Mr. Taylor : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : According to my judgment, as a member of the 
Committee on Credentials of this great National Democratic 
Convention sitting on the trial of this controversy as a jury, 
intending to do and vote as I believe for the right, I derive 
from the testimony in the case that in the State of Michigan 
one of the greatest wrongs was perpetrated by the selection of 
the delegation as recognized by the National Committee I 
ever saw ; the defense as interposed to the prosecution of this 
matter set on foot by the contesting delegates if it amounted 
to anything, according to the evidence was nothing inore than 
a plea of " confession and avoidance." 

The gentleman who has just spoken on the minority report 
said that what you wanted was facts. You have received no 
facts. This case was left in the hands of the Committee and 
Ave. have been in earnest, solemn session over this question ever 
since we have been appointed. All night long w^e heard tes- 
timony. Statement after statement that was made by the 
contestees was deliberately denounced as being untrue by the 
■contestants present and supported by affidavits of citizens. 

Fellow citizens, it is a question for you to decide whether 
Democrats in the great State of Michigan, who are honestly 
and fairly here representing the majority of the Democracy of 
that State, shall be stifled and throttled and driven from this 
Convention, or whether you will recognize them as the legal 
and lawful representatives of that constituency. Now, gen- 
tlemen of the Convention, we w^ant no wrong done ; we want 
that done here which will be just and which will be right. As 
a representative of one-half of the financial question, repre- 
senting the minority report, we have voted to retain and seat 
only two contestants from the Fourth, and two from the Ninth 
districts, the others to remain seated, as was recommended by 
the National Committee. We intend to be fair and to do 
what is right and what is just and what is honest with the 
Democracy of that State. 

Now. gentlemen of the Convention, I do not desire to take 
up your time, but I would say that if you had heard the sworn 



140 Official Proceedings of the 

testimony as ^ve had it, the undisputed facts, on many points 
as we had them, you would come to the same conclusion that 
the majority has come to, and that the majority report should 
be adopted by this Convention. I thank you. 

The Chair : I have the honor to present Gov. A. J. 
McLaurin, of Mississippi. 

Gov. McLaurin : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I have not come to make a speech, but to state 
the facts as we found them by an investigation of this contest, 
and I will beg of the audience to remain quiet and give me 
their attention, because I think the delegates to this Conven- 
tion want to act intelligently and want to act upon conclu- 
sions. It has been said that we have no right to go into the 
State of Michigan and overturn the will of the majority of 
the Democrats of that State. I agree to that. 

I have been endeavoring, to the best of my humble ability, 
ever since you adjourned yesterday evening, to ascertain what 
are the facts and who have the majority in this contest. Right 
here let me say to you that the undisputed evidence, the un- 
questioned fact, so far as the evidence has been presented to 
your Committee on Credentials, is that there were 788 dele- 
gates in that Convention. There was a great question of 
national importance that was submitted to the Democracy 
of the State, as was submitted to the Democracy of every 
State in the Union, and in the determination of that question 
there were 424 men instructed as delegates to the Convention 
at Detroit to vote for silver. There were 127 of those delegates 
instructed to vote for gold. There were 232 of the delegates 
who were uninstructed — leaving a clear majority in favor of 
the cause of silver over those who were instructed. There- 
fore, you see that there is no effort here to throttle the will or 
stifle the purpose of the majority of the Democrats of Michi- 
gan. But there is an effort here to put upon the floor men 
who represent a majority of these delegates, and that without 
reference to any technicalities. 

Now, sir, there was a great issue to be submitted to the 
people of this country. There are t^vo parties : two great 
national parties. One of those parties has taken its stand, 
and the other was looking out for the stand that it was to 



Democratic National Convention. 141 

take on this question. All other questions had been subordi- 
nated, and in the State of Michigan, as in every other State 
in this Union, this question was being discussed and debated 
as the leading one to put to the front in the November 
election. 

There was a man went from that State to the city of 
Washington, and the question was propounded to him, so far 
as this evidence goes, and I am stating to you sworn testimony 
of one of the delegates who I believe sits upon this floor, that 
this man who had gone to Washington, when he came back, 
told him, " I have made up my judgment upon it." I give 
the evidence to you and you can act for yourselves. This 
man told him when he came back that he had stated in Wash- 
ington that it was impossible to carry the State of Michigan 
for the gold standard, that he was told that at all hazards he 
must carry it for the gold standard and for the Administra- 
tion. 

Now, I want to give you, gentlemen of the Convention 
and Mr. President, some of the methods adopted to carry it 
for the gold standard. I have already shown you, my fellow 
citizens, gentlemen of the Convention, that of the 788 dele- 
gates who constituted the Convention at Detroit a clear 
majority, a handsome working majority, had been instructed to 
vote against the commands that had been given to carry this 
State at all hazards for the Administration and for gold. 

In the Fourth district — and I want to say right here that I 
am one of those twenty-two who voted against retaining the 
four men who occupy seats here from the State at large — the 
vote was 22 to 24 to retain them and to unseat the delegates 
from the Fourth district and from the Ninth district, and I am 
one of the twenty-two who voted against retaining the dele- 
gates who are now upon the floor from the State at large. 
When the Convention met from the Fourth district the execu- 
tive committeeman, RoDGERS, called the Convention of the 
Fourth district to order, and named one Kipler, I believe his 
name was, for Temporary Chairman. The Convention asked 
the privilege of doing what we did here yesterday, of naming 
their own chairman. That proposition was refused, and after 
some considerable discussion Kipi.er was permitted to take 
the stand as Temporary Chairman and did take it. Presently 



142 Official Proceedings of the 

there came up a question of appeal from the ruling of the 
Chair. I do not recall now exactly on what that was, but the 
vote of those who were opposed to Kipler and opposed to the 
delegates who occupy seats on this floor from the State at 
large was 22 against 20, and two of that twenty were not 
entitled to seats on that floor. There was a motion made 
then to adjourn. Twenty-three men voted against twenty 
for adjournment. The Convention was adjourned. 

After these twenty-three had left that Convention and gone 
into the hall the other twenty elected the two men who 
occupy seats now on the floor from the Fourth district of 
Michigan. 

A gentleman by the name of O'Hara, who was a brother, 
I believe, of some man who has gone across the waters with a 
commission from this Administration, went into the Conven- 
tion and made the announcement that these two gentlemen 
were elected. It was stated that this Convention, the Dis- 
trict Convention from the Fourth district, had adjourned, and 
that after the adjournment twenty members had made the 
election. The Convention, taken in charge as it was, for the 
purpose of running it at all hazards, did do the decent thing 
to refer it back to the delegates from the Fourth district and 
said that they should elect their man. What then ? No 
chairman called it to order, nobody called the Convention o^ 
the Fourth district to order, but a majority of them met and 
elected the contesting delegates here and made Mr. Kipler 
the Chairman of the Convention, and asked them to report it 
to the State Convention, and he did so. When he went to 
report it to the Convention he found that this gentleman, Mr. 
O'Hara, had reported to the Convention that another set of 
delegates — tho'se occupying seats here — had been elected, and 
the Chairman of the Convention refused to recognize Mr. 
Kipler and refused to give him any hearingf. Now, that is 
the state of the case from the Fourth district. These are the 
facts from the Fourth district, as found by the Committee. 

Gentlemen, I want to call your attention to another fact, 
because I am telling you the facts — I am not making a speech; 
I cannot make a speech. I do not know how, but I am giv- 
ing you the facts here. 

The facts of that Convention are that when they went in 



Democratic National Convention. 14B 

there they did not elect them by the State, but merely recorded 
them as the action of that District Convention. It was not the 
District Convention ; and I will call your attention to another 
fact. The Committee on Credentials being unwieldy, ap- 
pointed seven delegates as a sub-committee to take evidence 
and compare it carefully. The chairman of the Committee on 
Credentials was the chairman, I had the honor to be a mem- 
ber of that sub-committee, and ^ve took up this evidence. The 
gentleman ^vho made his speech here and charged that we in- 
tended to take away the right of representation from the peo- 
ple of Michigan, had not the opportunity, has not given it the 
investigation that the Committee has done — the committee of 
eight — and these are the facts in it. 

That is the ^vay, then, that the Fourth District Convention 
\vas run ; "at all hazards ^ve had to have it, and at all hazards 
^ve had to get it, in any way. We were willing to take 
twenty men after the Convention adjourned, and by a majority 
of three make this election of two delegates, and get the State 
at all hazards by a vote of a majority of three." No\v, let us 
see about the Ninth district. In the Ninth district there \vere 
twenty-four men voting for silver and tw-enty-six for gold. 
Two of these men ^vho ^vere for gold were representing the 
County of Lake, \vhere there had been no Democratic Con- 
vention held, according to the sworn testimony, and they 
were men who were not residents of the County of Lake. 
According to the laws of the State of Michigan a man can- 
not be a delegate of a State Convention \vho is not a resident 
of the county that he undertakes to represent. Now, then,^ 
these two men were in there. Take those two men from 
twenty-six, and that leaves you tw^enty-four. Now, then,, 
they come before our committee with a report signed by 
somebody who purports to be the Chairman of a Convention 
and somebody else who purports to be the Secretary of a Con- 
vention, in which they say that these two men were elected. 
There is no denial of the proposition. 

Hon. W. p. Murray, of Tennessee : There is so much 
confusion in the galleries that nothing can be heard by the dele- 
gation of which I am a member, and I move that the Ser- 
geant-at-Arms be directed to clear the galleries. 



144 Official Proceedings of the 

The Chair : The gentleman from Tennessee moves that 
the galleries be cleared unless quiet is maintained. The gal- 
leries must be quiet. 

Mr. McLaurin (continuing): Now, this is the sworn 
testimony of witnesses, who have testified to the fact that no 
Convention was held in the county wliich these two men 
claimed to represent. They testified to the further fact, under 
oath, that these two men purporting to represent the County 
of Lake were not residents of that county. The statute book 
says that they are not authorized to represent any county un- 
less they are residents of the county. So much for that. 
Those were the men who voted for and were instructed for 
silver, — 

The speaker not being able to proceed, Sergeant-at- 
Arms Martin said: 

The Chair has requested the Sergeant-at-Arms to instruct 
the Assistant Sergeant-at-Arms and the Police Department to 
remove anyone in the galleries who may disturb this meeting, 
and I will carry out that order. 

When quiet was restored Governor McLaurin contin- 
ued as follows: 

Now, there was another county in that Convention entitled 
to thirteen votes. They were instructed to vote as a unit. 
There were seven men in that county who were elected 
because they were for silver. Their places were taken by the 
seven men who cast the thirteen votes of the county. That is 
the sworn testimony. That was the Ninth district. 

Now for the State at large. I say that I voted against 
seating anybody that was sent here by that Convention. As I 
said before, there was a great question before the American 
people. I am not here for the purpose of arguing that. I 
might, if I so desired, call attention to the fact that in 1812 
Great Britain was in the throes of a great struggle that taxed 
her power and resources. I might call attention to the fact 
that during that time they had to obtain money, the sinews of 
war, to carry on their fights and to maintain their armies. I 
might call attention to the fact that during that time govern- 



Democratic National Conventiox. 145 

ment securities were issued, and government obligations were 
incurred, and just after the war, in 1816, when these men who 
held these securities and these government obligations wanted 
to double the price that they had put upon their merchandise, 
put upon their money that had been loaned to the govern- 
ment, secured the demonetization of silver in Great Britain. 
I might call attention to the fact that, if I were disposed to 
discuss this question, in 1861 and 1865 there was a great strug- 
gle in this country that taxed the power of the country and 
the resources of the country, and it became necessary to obtain 
money to carry on the war, and that securities w^ere issued, 
and that after the w^ar the men w^ho held these securities and 
these obligations against the government were desirous of 
doing the very thing that Britain did in 1816, and I might say 
that they are the very men, as a rule, who in Great Britain, 
or descendants of the very men who had obtained the demon- 
etization of silver, for the purpose of doubling their contracts 
and their obligations, in 1816. I might call attention — 

Hon. Allen L. McDermott, of New Jersey : I rise to a 
point of order. My point is that no question of seventy years 
ago can affect the election of delegates to a Convention held 
in 1896. 

Governor McLaurin : You want to put a coal of fire on 
a terrapin's back if you want to see him move. 

The Chair : The gentleman is not in order. 

Gov. McLaurin : Gentlemen of the Convention : You 
have facts so far as I have been able to gather them. You 
have facts that the State of Michigan is not represented here 
by men who are in accord with the majority of the Democrats 
of that State, and I have not heard it asserted by any man 
who contends for a seat on this floor because he was sent 
from that State Convention that he does represent a majority 
of the Democrats of the State of Michigan. 

The Chair then recognized Hon. E. G. Stevenson, of 
Michigan. Hon. John F. Saulsbury, of Delaware, asked 
permission to be heard, and Mr. Stevenson yielded the 
platform to him. 

10 



146 Official Proceedings of the 

Hon. John F. Saulsbury : Gentlemen of the Conven- 
tion : I was elected to this Convention as a free'silver'nian^ 
to vote for free silver at 16 to 1. I expect to do it,'^but I can- 
not believe that this Convention will do an injustice^to] any 
State by unseating men legally elected, and I shall not vote 
for it. If Michigan men elected to their State Convention, 
men that w^ould sell out and vote against their instructions, to 
send delegates here, this is not the place to wash their dirty 
linen. That is all I have to say. 

Hon. E. G. Stevenson, of Michigan : Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I am the man they say who stole Michigan. I 
desire, gentlemen of the Convention, not to discuss the finan- 
cial issue which will be settled by the platform of this Con- 
vention, but to discuss the right of the delegates elected by a 
sovereign Convention. 

The Democrats of the State of Michigan are represented 
in myself as the chairman of its committee, who carried on 
the only s'lver campaign that Michigan ever had — a man who 
is a Democrat now, and who hopes that his State will be so 
treated that he can be a Democrat when this Convention con- 
cludes its labors. The Convention of the State of Michigan 
is organized by law, not merely by usage. The delegates 
elected get their certificates of election from our city clerk,, 
and no man vv^ho desires to sit can sit in a convention in our 
city without such credentials. When the County Conven- 
tions are organized the officers. Chairman and Secretary, have 
to take a solemn oath to discharge their duties faithfully, and 
so as to the State Convention. The State Convention of 
Michigan convened, and this contest was on. They organized 
in the regular manner. Their officers were duly sworn. A 
Committee on Credentials was appointed, one from each dis-^ 
trict, seven so-called sound money men and five free silver 
inen, and they passed upon the credentials and reported them 
unanimously. All agreed. There was not a single contest 
in the entire State. When the Convention organized the gen- 
tlemen who are here contesting stood by, voted in our Conven- 
tion and never uttered a protest. 

A VOICE : "You didn't give us a chance." 

Every delegate selected to this Convention was elected oni 



Democratic National Committee. 147 

a roll-call of counties, where each county openly announced 
its vote, and the vote of not one single delegate was chal- 
lenged ; not one. When the Convention concluded its labors 
the district delegates were elected by the State Convention, 
not by districts. The district merely recommended to the 
State Convention, and the report of the district delegates 
whose seats are here contested were reported to the Conven- 
tion and adopted and ratified by the unanimous vote of the 
Convention. 

And, gentlemen, the officers of that Convention have sent 
their credentials here under oath. These men who contest 
have no credentials from any convention ; not even a rump 
convention. If there ^vas any unfairness, if there was any 
one whose vote should have been challenged, there was the 
place to do it. This Convention has no right to sit as a Com- 
mittee on Credentials on our State Convention. It may suit 
the purpose of some of the gentlemen in this Convention to 
pursue this course to-day, but, gentlemen, you are making a 
precedent that wall damn you some day. The only safe Dem- 
ocratic doctrine is to stand by precedent and stand by the 
delegates who got the only credentials to this Convention. 

By what right does this Convention investigate Avho had 
the right to a seat in this Convention, when we had a Com- 
mittee appointed that did that work in our Convention and 
settled that question by a unanimous vote.^* Now% my friends,, 
this is not a question of gold and silver ; it is a question of 
honesty and right. This is a question of whether lihe Cre- 
dentials Committee wdth South Dakota, that has only eight 
votes, will resolve that they cannot go behind the returns — 
the credentials — but in Michigan, to get twenty-eight votes, 
they wnll go behind the returns. 

We ask you, gentlemen, simply to vote to sustain the reg- 
ular organization of your party. Only Monday night of this 
last week in this great city was I elected to conduct the com- 
ing campaign. I want to go home to the discharge of my 
duty in that capacity feeling that my State associates have 
received justice. I thank you for your attention. 

The Chair : The Hon. William F. Sheehan, of New- 
York. 



148 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Sheehan : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I will be fortunate, indeed, if my voice will be 
strong enough to reach the remotest part of the section of the 
hall devoted to the delegates elected to this Convention. 
I will make no effort whatever to throw my voice beyond that 
distance, because it is impossible. 

I was a member representing the State of New York, and 
am now its member of the National Committee. It became 
the duty of that National Committee to make up the prelim- 
inary roll of delegates to the Convention. We heard, patiently, 
all contests submitted to that Committee, including this Michi- 
gan contest. We heard first the contest from the State of 
Indiana. That was a case — and it will be the only one that I 
will cite, except this particular case — that was a case the 
reverse of this. That was a case where a district, a Con- 
gressional district in Indiana, elected, according to precedent, 
in a district Congressional Convention, two delegates to this 
Convention, but the State Convention when it met saw fit to 
recognize a time-honored Democratic principle, that within 
the sovereign State itself the State Convention is the sole and 
only judge of Democracy. And that Democratic National 
Committee by a unanimous vote, although twenty seven men 
in that Committee believe not in 16 to 1, although we had 
views not in accord with the views of the majority of this 
Convention, we decided to seat the silver men from Indiana, 
and to throw out the gold men from Indiana. 

We came along to this contest and we heard the contest, 
and, Mr. Chairman, after we had listened to that contest a 
call of the States was made, and, by a vote of 49 to 1, the 
delegation headed by Mr. Stevenson was declared the choice 
of that Committee for preliminary purposes. We heard the 
contest and my friend Thomas, from Colorado; my friend 
Tarpey, from California, and the distinguished gentleman 
from Alabama, who yesterday moved to override the will of 
that majority, all on the roll call declared that Michigan in its 
sovereign Democracy was the sole and only judge of the 
qualifications of the delegates from that State. 

Now what are the facts with reference to this particular 
case, with reference to the chief points of interest in it ? It 
is well known that the Michigan delegation is here under the 



Democratic National Convention. 149 

unit rule. It is well known that a poll of the delegates from 
that State shows that fifteen of them are for gold, or rather 
against 16 to 1, and thirteen are for silver, 16 to 1. My 
friend, the distinguished governor from Mississippi, has said 
that the prevailing sentiment of Michigan was in favor of 
silver, and that that sentiment should be recognized by giving 
them representation in this Convention on the delegation. 
Why, sir, if that were true, why not give that sentiment all 
the delegation from Michigan ? Why, sir, it was but last 
night when this Committee whose report is now under con- 
sideration even had the hardihood to decide in favor of throw- 
ing out Stevenson and the other three delegates-at-large 
from that State, but when the wise men of the majority here 
got together this morning they saw how impolitic such a 
course as that was, and orders wei'e given not to put Steven- 
son and the other delegates-at-large out, but simply content 
themselves by putting two silver men from a congressional 
district in. 

What is its purpose ? The purpose is plainly this : If 
this majority report is adopted, there will be fifteen 16 to 1 
men in the delegation and thirteen gold men. They will vote 
the delegation as a unit, and in that way some gentlemen 
here are foolish enough to believe that you will indirectly suc- 
ceed in violating the old, time-honored Democratic doctrine of 
a two-thirds rule in this Convention. The only subject and 
purpose of the adoption of this report necessarily must be so 
that you can vote Michigan so that you can override indi- 
rectly, when you dare not directly, the two-thirds rule. 

One word more : I warn my friends from the South, I warn 
those men who fought with me and with whom I fought four 
years ago, to hesitate before you commit this second unprece- 
dented and un-Democratic act. I ask you, gentlemen of 
this Convention — there are inany people who believe in this 
country that the proceedings of this Convention were begun 
in revolution — in God's name do not end them in revolution. 

The Chair : The Chair recognizes Hon. T. W. Blake, 
of Texas. 

Mr. Blake : Gentlemen of the Convention : This is 
too important a matter to act in haste about. I am both tired 



150 Official Proceedings of the 

and sleepy. (A voice " What State ?") lam from the Lone 
Star State, sir, of Texas. I am both tired and sleepy by rea- 
son of the fact that I have been at work upon this case since 
8 o'clock last night. I want to tell you that what I say with 
reference to my course upon it will be borne out by the gentle- 
men on that Committee who are gold men, I believe, when I 
say that I acted conservatively and with the end only in view 
to do what was right. I want to tell you that I am on gen- 
eral principles opposed to going behind the returns of a State 
convention, and there is but one ground that will justify it, in 
my judgment, by a National convention ; and that ground is 
fraud, and it was on this ground that we did go behind the 
returns of the State Convention of Michigan. It was because 
the evidence was so abundant that that Convention has been 
manipulated and the will of the people of Michigan had been 
disregarded. 

Democracy means the will of the people, and these gen- 
tlemen who are here upon this floor know that the reports in 
all of the papers of this country told you that a majority of 
the counties of Michigan before that Convention had assembled 
had declared for the free coinage of silver. The evidence 
before us showed that to be the case and that the judgment of 
the people was overturned by federal office holders manipulat- 
ing the delegates, getting proxies and voting them contrary 
to law. 

I want to tell you right now that, in my udgment, this 
whole infernal delegation from Michigan ought to be turned 
out, if half the facts are true that were proved and stated 
before that Convention. You are told that no protests were 
made and that these whole proceedings were regular. I hold 
in my hand and in the hnnds of the Secretary of our Com- 
mittee can be found abundant evidence that that statement is 
not true. I will tell you why they did not do anything. 
After trying all they could, by getting up a protest, the Chair- 
man overruled everything and ran that Convention by revolu- 
tionary tactics himself and when they failed to get recognition 
w^hat on God's earth could they do but sit down and keep 
quiet ? And they come to you at this Convention and ask 
that you give them their rights. Now, listen ; I believe that 
the four delegatesat-large from that State are not entitled to 



Democratic National Convention. 151 

seats upon this floor, but in a spirit of compromising the mat- 
ter, I do not want to do that which is wrong, and I want to 
state here and now that if ^ve cannot nominate a President 
upon a silver platform by votes that are honest and fair, I do 
not want it. I do not expect to cast my vote to rob any State 
in this Union of any vote to which it is justly entitled. I am 
not doing it. That Committee acted wisely, in my judgment, 
when it voted to unseat the delegates from the Fourth district 
and from the Ninth. I cannot go into the details of this 
evidence. 

We have spent the whole time since 8 o'clock last night 
until now, and after mature deliberation we have come to the 
conclusion that the delegates from the Fourth district should 
be unseated, and the men who are contesting should be put 
in their places ; that the delegates from the Ninth district 
should be unseated, and those that are contesting should be 
put in their places. And I say furthermore, to every silver 
man upon this floor, that I believe it is your duty to do it ; you 
ought to do it if you ^vant to correct a wrong, and if you 
want to repudiate fraud ; and you are going to do it, too. 

Mr. Sheehan told you that the National Committee had 
investigated this matter ; but they did not go into the details 
of this evidence, as I am informed, as we did, because they 
acted upon all these contests in one-fourth of the time that we 
spent on this particular case. Now, that doesn't look like they 
had given the consideration to it that we had. We appointed 
a special committee of seven, of which I ^vas one, and we 
went into the details of this question, and took up every single 
particle of evidence that we had and we did it just as judges 
do in considering a case. I have talked myself down and I 
am tired ; you understand the question, and if you vote for the 
majority report you w^ill do ^vhat is right. I thank you. 

The Chair : Hon. W. F. McKnight, of Michigan. 

Mr. McKnight : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : In addition to the request of the last gentleman 
who preceded me, I ^vill ask that not only the silver delegates 
of this Convention but the entire delegations from the various 
states vote to support this report of the majority. But in the 
few moments which I have to occupy I hope to be able to 



152 Official Proceedings of the 

present you such facts that every delegation here will vote to 
maintain and pass this majority report. I am somevs^hat sur- 
prised by the position taken by the gentleman from New^ York. 
He has made up his mind, I presume, as some other gentlemen 
from that State have done, who made up their minds three or 
four days before this matter was presented either to the Com- 
mittee on Credentials or to this Convention. The gentlemen 
on that Committee have given this matter careful and candid 
consideration, and they are here to-day to testify from this 
platform, to some — only some of the outrages perpetrated upon 
the Democracy of Michigan. 

The several county Conventions in the State of Michigan 
at an early date, and long before the State Convention was 
held, selected from the various counties a majority of over two 
hundred in favor of silver — and when the administration at 
Washington learned of this fact, Mr. Stevenson, who has 
appeared upon this platform, was called to Washington by the 
great chief and after he was told that Michigan was solidly in 
the silver column 

Hon. Elliott G. Stevenson, of Michigan : There is 
not a word of truth in that. 

Mr. McKnight (Resuming) ; After he was told that Michi- 
gan was solid in the silver column, he was requested to get 
possession of the State of Michigan, and how^ far they had suc- 
ceeded you are the judges. Let me illustrate to you some of 
the things that took place. Men holding federal positions 
w^ere sent up and dov^^n the State, interviewing delegates and 
working with them for the purpose of distorting the will of the 
people who elected them. We found that when the Conven- 
tion met, even up to that time there was a great majority in 
favor of silver, but federal forces of the State of Michigan to 
the extent of over 800 were in attendance at the Convention, 
and they practically took hold of and managed and ran and 
conducted it in favor of gold. That is the condition of affairs. 

Hon. Thomas A. E. Weadock, of Michigan : It is not 
true. 

Mi*. McKnight: Now, then, by a bare majority of one, 
after that Convention assembled, they selected a gentleman 



Democratic National Convention. 153 

for Chairman who was with them upon every proposition that 
came before that Convention. He ruled with them against 
the will of the majority. To illustrate in one instance how 
they managed and manipulated this Convention : one county^ 
Berrien, was entitled to nineteen delegates. There were pres- 
ent in that Convention from that county three silver men and 
two gold men. Those were all representing the entire dele- 
gation of nineteen. What did they do.f* Two men favorable 
to gold were telegraphed for the night before the Convention 
to come on, and the next morning, under the protest of the 
three silver men on the delegation, these two men were placed 
upon that delegation and given rights in the Convention, and 
these four men controlled the other three and distorted the will 
of the people from the county whom they represented. And 
what did these men do, and what did the Chairman of that 
Convention recognize? He allowed and permitted those four 
gold men in that Convention to cast 16 votes, solidly every 
time ; and the other three men to cast but three. These were 
some of the practices, these were some of the methods pursued 
in that State Convention. 

Now, gentlemen, you have heard here detailed by the major- 
ity of this Committee, or members representing the majority^ 
the facts in the case. Governor McLaurin, of Mississippi, has 
gone over it carefully. He has presented the matter to you,^ 
and he has presented it fairly, and he has represented not even 
the facts as strong as they are, and the matters which occurred 
in the Fourth district are not even put as strong by the Gov- 
ernor as they might and could be from the sworn testimony in 
this case. 

I am somewhat surprised to learn of the recent conversion 
of the gentleman from Michigan known as Mr. Stevenson, 
When, under God's heaven, did he become a convert to silver .f* . 
Gentlemen, we ask you in all fairness, in all justice, that you 
support here to-day the majority report, which is approved by 
over two to one, and by so doing you will carry Michigan 
next November by at least 25,000 majority. 

The Chair : I present Judge Ferdinand Brucker, of 

Michigan. 



154 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Brucker : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : 

When all of us poor Democrats, weary of breath, 

Seek relief from these political trials in death; 

When we have all had enough of contentions and strife, 

And, longing for peace. 

We sign a release 
Of the bodies whereof we've been tenants for life; 
Whereupon it is said, without further delay, 
The boat of old Charon will take us away; 
And when a good Democrat loses his place. 

With a wild ghostly cheer 

We will quit this sphere 
And sail through the star-sprinkled regions of space. 

But at length we emerge from the regions of night and 
splendors celestial will burst full upon the sight of every Dem- 
ocrat. I am from IMichigan — from the city that raises more 
saw^dust and salt and free-silver Democrats than any other city 
in the Union. I was one of the Michigan Democrats who, 
when the vote was challenged on the election of a Tempo- 
rary Chairman of this Convention, voted for the free-silver 
candidate. I have always been a free-silver man, and I was 
a member of the Committee on Resolutions in the State Con- 
vention two years ago that nominated that honest man, Hon. 
Spencer O. Fisher, on a free-silver platform. 

But I want to say this to you, my friends and tellow dele- 
gates, we have got votes enough in this Convention to nomi- 
nate a free-silver candidate by a two-thirds majority without 
committing highway robbery. You may take my head for a 
foot ball if the twenty-eight votes from Michigan are not 
voted for a free and unlimited coinagfe silver man for Presi- 
dent and Vice-President, regardless of what your vote may be 
here to-day. 1 thank you for your attention. 

The Chair : I present Hon. C. S. Thomas, of Colo- 
rado. 

Mr. Thomas : Gentlemen of the Convention : It would 
be a great misfortune, in my opinion, for this Convention to 
do otherwise than nominate a candidate representing the 
wishes of the majority; it would be a greater one to secure 
such nomination by overturning the officially expressed wish 



Democratic National Convention. 155 

of one of the sovereign States of this Union. We were 
ch;.«rged, on yesterday, with a violation of a Democratic prece- 
dent, and the charge, in my opinion, was not well founded. 
If this majority report shall receive the official sanction of this 
Convention, then those who made the charge on yesterday 
will repeat it with truth to-morro^v. 

Four years ago practically the same question was pre- 
sented from the State of New York, and before the Commit- 
tee on Credentials could' determine it, it was declared that the 
expressed sentiment of the Convention itself must determine 
the official character of the candidate. Now, I understand 
from the testimony here that at the time of the recommenda- 
tions of certain names to the State Convention, that Conven- 
tion adopted the recommendation without any protest what- 
ever being made. There was the tiine and there was the 
place in which to make it. It seems to me that when a num- 
ber of weeks is necessary for an individual to find out the fact 
that his virtue has been debauched, then such virtue should be 
received at least with some suspicion by a National Con- 
vention. 

If I understand the testimony correctly, from what has 
been detailed and presented here — and I have not yet heard it 
contradicted — so far as the action of that Convention is con- 
cerned, it set the seal of its approval "without objection and 
Avithout protest, upon the forehead of every one of these 
Michigan delegates that were recognized by the National 
Committee. If that be so, gentlemen of the Convention, it 
does seem to me in all candor that we should regard the prec- 
edents of parties and recognize the sovereignty of the States 
thus casting their vote under the unit rule. We cannot under 
any circumstances transform ourselves into a returning board, 
a'nd by going behind these return-:, seat anyone here except 
those who have these credentials. If these four delegates 
■who are said to be not entitled to seats in this Convention are, 
by reason of the manner in which they have been chosen not 
•so entitled, then it follows that every one of the twenty-eight 
delegates similarly commissioned in this Convention are not 
entitled to recognition. It was said by one of the speakers 
that we should only go behind the returns because of fraud. 
It has been my teaching that fraud vitiates everything ; and I 



156 Official Proceedings of the 

put it to your sense of consistency, how it is possible that this 
fraud, of which complaint is made, affects but four of these 
delegates, while the others remain untainted. 

Now, my fello\v citizens, I shall not detain ^^ou longer. I 
was a member of the National Committee that passed upon 
this question, without receiving, I admit, a great deal of testi- 
mony. But I warn you, fellow delegates of the South and 
West, that we cannot afford to strike the sovereignty of the 
State of Michigan squarely in the forehead simply for the 
purpose of obtaining a two-thirds majority for our candidate. 

Gentlemen, I hope, therefore, that this report of the 
minority Committee will be sustained by the vote which you 
shall take. 

The Chair : Judge O. W. Powers, of Utah. 

Judge Powders : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : The 
question that it seems to me is presented for the consideration 
of those who are to do the voting at this Convention is as to 
whether the report of a duly and regularly constituted com- 
mittee of this Convention, representing a majority of all the 
States of the Union, shall be sustained, or whether we shall 
take the ^vord of gentlemen upon this platform as to whether 
the facts are this way or that way, we being unable to tell 
whether they are fully acquainted with the facts or not. 

Our Committee has carefully investigated this matter and 
it has made its report to this Convention. It has said to you 
that it has found in the case of Michigan, fraud — fraud which 
vitiates all things. 

The party that had the Presidency of the United States 
wrested from it after Tilden had been elected, ought to abhor 
fraud even though it be committed in organized Michigan or 
any other State. 

What are the facts, gentlemen, as known to the people of 
this Union .'* The political history of this country informs us 
that Michigan has been and is a State in favor of free and un- 
limited coinage of silver at a ratio of 16 to 1, independent of 
any nation upon the face of the earth, or what it may care. 
Nevertheless, we find seated in this Convention a delegation 
bound to the gold idol, proposing nov^, by way of compromise, 
to cast its votes for a free silver candidate. If their cause was 



Democratic National Convention. 157 

just, why should it be stated hereby the delegates from Mich- 
igan that they propose now to abandon their golden standard 
and vote for a free silver candidate. It has been stated that 
free silver is dishonest. If it is dishonest, honest men cannot 
sustain it, and honest men cannot vote for its candidates. 

We have been made aware by the public press that this is 
a free silver State. We were informed that the majority to 
the Convention were elected as silver delegates. The result 
of that Convention surprised the whole land. The people 
have been made acquainted with these facts, and I, for one, 
believing in the right of States to elect their own delegates, 
but believing also that no delegation should sit in this Con- 
vention whose title is tainted with fraud, am in favor of sus- 
taining the report made by the majority of the States after 
patient deliberation ; not that w^e may have a two-thirds vote 
for a free silver candidate, because we have that already; but 
because it is right, and right wrongs no man ; because it is just 
and justice is what we seek for. The 650 delegates sitting 
upon the floor have no reason to seat these men to gain more 
strength and they should be seated if the report of the Creden- 
tials Committee is correct. Having faith in those men who 
have investigated it, I submit to you that the only question is, 
shall we sustain the majority of the States ? 

The Chair : Senator Thomas F. Grady, of New York. 

Senator Grady : Gentlemen of the Convention : The 
question submitted to you for determination is one that goes 
far beyond and reaches far above the simple question as to 
whether twenty- four or more men, constituting a committee, 
shall be sustained, because you are to determine whether a 
Democratic principle and precedent as old as the party itself 
is to be violated, and that under the most suspicious circum- 
stances. Let us not be deceived. The delegates are not 
deceived and the people cannot be deceived as to just what 
this means. It was the very height of generosity in the calm, 
judicial member from Texas that they are willing to leave the 
delegates-at large remain. Adopt the majority report, and 
under the unit rule you have every vote from Michigan, so 
that the generosity was more in name than in fact. 

Answering the gentleman from Utah, who has placed his 



158 Official Proceedings of the 

judicial determination upon what he read in the newspapers, 
let me remind him that some of us since coming to Chicago 
have read in the newspapers that right or w^rong some of the 
Michigan delegation were to be unseated, and were to be 
unseated for the purpose of making the abrogation of the 
tw^o-thirds rule unnecessary. If the newspapers are to be 
relied upon for the gossip and the rumors and the statements 
that they have published regarding the Michigan contest, be 
sure before you vote that the people of the United States do 
not believe that your action in unseating regularly elected 
delegates is not misunderstood as an attempt to pack the 
Convention. 

Mr. Grady was interrupted at this point by some 
disturbance at the entrance to the floor; the band played, 
and for a few moments he could not continue. Order 
being restored, he resumed as follows: 

Mr. Grady : It is a most unfortunate circumstance that 
it would seem as if I never can make a speech in a National 
Convention without creating some kind of a row. My pur- 
pose in speaking was to avoid a row, yet there must be a row, 
if not here, in some place else, if we are to overturn a prece- 
dent that is a part of the party discipline itself. 

What have we here? We have under the seal of the State 
of Michigan, through the only of^cers of any Democratic 
State Convention held in that State this year, a certificate that 
certain men had been duly elected at a Convention, uncon- 
tested in its parts and uncontested as to its actions. As 
against that some four men have come to the City of Chicago 
and have \vritten out their own credentials, because there are 
but two sources from which credentials could emanate: — the 
State Convention for the regularly elected delegates, and the 
claimants themselves for the contestants. They have written 
out their own credentials, and they have presented them to 
you, and you are asked upon affidavits, rumors, newspaper 
reports, anything and everything, that you cannot see, that you. 
cannot judge, that you cannot w^eigh, you are asked to over-^ 
turn the action of a sovereign State and grab four votes. 

They say the four votes thus to be grabbed are not neces- 



Democratic National Convention. 159 

sary for any practical purpose. Then the less excuse for grab- 
bing them. One of the gentlemen complains that it was a 
Convention that v^'as manipulated. Well, what does he call 
manipulation ? Some of us thought there was manipulation at 
the Convention of the great State of Missouri. There a dis- 
trict voted for two gold standard men. You could go through 
that delegation and you would not find them there. The sil- 
ver sentiment of the Missouri Convention turned them doAvn. 
They were hostile to the prevailing sentiment of the Conven- 
tion, and the recommendation of the district was ignored and 
a solid silver delegation was sent. Suppose the two men thus 
turned down had held a convention in some hotel, as the 
Michigan claimants did, and wrote out their own credentials, 
and came here and told you that the Convention of the State 
of Missouri had been manipulated, how you would have 
laughed them out of the Convention. 

Now, the other inember of the committee did not complain 
about the Convention being manipulated. With him it was 
the delegates who were manipulated. They had been selected 
to do something. They went to the Convention and they did 
not do it, or they did not do it in the way that the majority of 
your Committee on Credentials would like that they should 
have done it, and because they disagree with the way in which 
they carried out the w^ishes of their constituents, then there is 
fraud, fraud that vitiates all things. There was fraud intro- 
duced into our national politics in 1876. There was a fraud 
by \vhich Democracy was robbed of the President legally 
elected, and how was the fraud triumphant? By the action of 
the returning board, which threw^ out the votes legally cast ; 
but they did not go so far as the returning board of the com- 
promise on credentials. They not only threw out the votes 
that were cast but they counted votes never cast, and they 
undertook to say who was the individual who would best rep- 
resent the prevailing sentiment in the State of Michigan. 

Now, gentlemen, this question goes further than Michigan. 
This question in its determination affects every sovereign 
state. This question is to be passed upon not only by you 
here, but is to be passed upon by your constituency when you 
return to them. It is against the Democratic precedent, and 
let me call your attention to the fact that it is not well to vio- 



160 Official Proceedings of the 

late Democratic precedent, particularly when we are assured 
that the violation of it is unnecessary. 

Speaking for the State of Nt w York, we have in times 
past claimed that there was no power in this Convention to 
override the will of our sovereign state, and having claimed 
that for ourselves, we are willing to yield it to our fellows. 

The Chair : The Chair will state to the Convention that 
there are two more speeches to be made, the one by Delegate- 
at-large T. A. E. Weadock ; and the other by Mr. O'Don- 
neli. on behalf of the Committee. I now present Mr. 
Weadock. 

Mr. Weadock : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of tlie 
Convention : I desire to be heard for a very few moments for 
the honor of my party and the honor of my State. I want to 
say that there has been no contest in reference to the delega- 
tion from Michigan ; but on the last day, in the afternoon, 
when the Convention was about to open, somebody came in 
here without notice, and with false affidavits which they knew 
there was no opportunity to meet and stated that they wanted 
an opportunity to be heard. That is what they called a con- 
test. There were not three hundred Federal officeholders in 
that Convention ; there were not twenty Federal officeholders ; 
and half of those at least were voting for silver. Neither 
was the delegation instructed for gold. That Convention ap- 
proved the platform of the last National Convention and vnted 
to remit to the coming National Convention the question as 
to the platform. 

We are here not to remove the delegates from that State, 
but to abide by the will of this Convention both in its plat- 
form and its candidate ; but we insist that the sovereign will of 
the people in all good faith and fairness should be obeyed in 
this Convention, but on the other hand we are not to be in- 
fluenced by some weak and cozening knave who wishes to 
give this Convention some advice and who is ready with his 
slander. I thank you for your attention. 

The Chair : The last speech on this subject is now about 
to be made and the debate closed by the gentleman from Colo- 
rado, Mr. T. J. O'DONNELL. 



Democratic National Convention. 161 

Mr. O'DoNNELL : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I will say a few words upon this question by 
the direction of the Committee on Credentials. We sat up 
until 4 o'clock this morning. We resumed the consideration 
of this question at 10 o'clock to-day. We referred it to a 
subcommittee upon which there was a gentleman from New 
York, and one from Maryland. Neither of those gentlemen 
has appeared upon this platform to dispute the honesty of the 
report of the Committee. But other men from the State of 
New York have come with threats against the majority of 
this Convention. I thank God that I have lived to see the 
time in a Democratic Convention when no threat of the gen- 
tleman from New York can drive it from doing its duty. 

Gentlemen, the cause of the four men represented by the 
majority report is as honest as the silver dollar. As to the 
cause of the four sitting delegates whom this Committee pro- 
poses to unseat by the vote of members of the Committee on 
Credentials representing gold states, so apparent was the 
fraud that men representing gold states voted for a part of 
this report. I give you facts. No gentleman has been here 
on the other side who heard a word or line of this testimony. 
We have here affidavits hy the hundred ; documents of all 
kinds supporting this contest. It shows that the gentlemen 
from Michigan who have spoken to you and whom the repre- 
sentatives of twenty-two sovereign states voted ought to be 
dispossessed of their seats because of the fraud they had 
committed, or that has been committed. It shows, gentle- 
men, that these other men, represented by the majority report, 
were elected in the Michigan State Convention. 

You talk about upsetting the will of a sovereign state. 
The purpose of the Committee is that the will of the sovereign 
State may and will be heard. We are not here to suppress it. 
We are here that truth, crushed to the earth in Michigan, 
may rise again and soar aloft ; that the expression and voice 
of the people of that State may not be stifled. That a dele- 
gation may not speak a lie on behalf of that State. We are 
here Avith this report to compel the truth to be spoken for the 
State of Michigan. 

Now, gentlemen, I ask you to sustain the report adopted 

in the Committee — twenty-five votes in the affirmative to nine 
11 



162 Official Proceedings of the 

in the negative. I move the previous question, Mr. Chair 
man. 

The Chair then put the question whether the previous 
question should be ordered, and it was adopted. 

The Chair : I will now state the question in order that 
it may be clearly understood. The majority of the Com- 
mittee have reported in favor of the Fourth and Ninth Con- 
gressional districts of Michigan. A minority of the Com- 
mittee have offered an amendment in favor of the sitting dele- 
gates of Michigan. A vote of aye upon the amendment, 
which will be submitted first, continues in their seats the 
sitting members. A vote of no is to the contrary of that propo- 
sition, and, should it carry, the question would then arise upon 
the report of the majority of the Committee. The question 
now is, gentlemen, upon the amendment offered by the 
minority of the Committee. 

Mr. Stevenson, of Michigan : I demand the roll call 
upon the question. 

The Chair : A roll call being demanded, the Chair will 
order that the roll of States be now called. 

The Secretary then called the roll. Alabama cast 22 
nays. John B. Knox, of Alabama, challenged the vote 
and the delegation was polled. 

The Chair : The tally is 7 yeas, 14 nays, one absent. 
Under the unit rule, Alabama's twenty-two votes must be 
recorded No. 

Arkansas cast sixteen negative votes. The Chairman of 
the California delegation announced the vote of that State 
as 1 1 yeas, 6 nays, one absent. 

Hon. Thomas Dozier : I challenge the vote of California. 

The Chair : Whoever challenges the vote must state his 
grounds ; the vote of California will be recorded as amended 
by the Chairman of the delegation. 

Mr. Dozier. I challenge the accuracy of the vote. 



Democratic National Convention. 168 

The Chair : The State will be polled. 

The roll of the California delegation was called. 
The vote as recorded was 1 1 yeas, 6 nays and one 
absent. The Clerk then continued the call with the result: 

Yeas. Nays 

Colorado 4 4 

Connecticut 12 

Delaware 6 

Florida 8 ' 

Georgia 26 

Idaho 6 

Illinois 48 

Indiana 8 22 

Iowa 26 

Kansas . . 20 

Kentucky 26 

Mr. James, of Kentucky: Mr. Chairman, under the unit 
rule, Kentucky votes 24 votes nay and 2 votes yea, which 
makes the 26. votes of Kentucky, nay, under the unit rule. 

Mr. Haldeman, of Kentucky : I challenge the vote. 

The Clerk then called the roll of Kentucky. 

The Chairman : 24 nays ; and 2 ayes ; the 26 votes of Ken- 
tucky under the unit rule will be counted no. 

The Secretary then continued the calling of the roll of 
States, as follows: 

Not 

Yeas. Nays, voting. 

Louisiana 16 

Maine 10 . . 2 

Maryland 15 1 

Massachusetts 27 8 

Michigan 28 . . 1 

Minnesota .18 4 1 

Mississippi 18 

Missouri 84 

Montana 6 



164 Official Proceedings of the 

Not 

Yeas. Nays, voting 

Nebraska 16 

Nevada 6 

New Hampshire 8 

New^ Jersey 20 

Nev^ York 72 

Upon the announcement of the vote of the State of New 
York a prolonged and loud demonstration of approval took 
place. When it subsided the Clerk continued to call the 
roll, calling the State of North Carolina. The Chairman of 
that delegation declined to announce the vote until order 
had been fully restored; this having been accomplished, the 
vote of North Carolina was recorded 21 nays, i aye. North 
Dakota vote 6 nays. 

Oov. Altgeld : I arise to a point of order and in that 
connection desire to challenge the vote of Michigan. We are 
proceeding here under the rules of the House of Representa- 
tives. Under the rules of the House of Representatives 
no member can vote upon any matter in which he is per- 
sonally interested. Consequently, no member of this Con- 
vention can vote upon a question in which he is personally in- 
terested. I will sit down, and the Chair can pass upon it. 

The Chairman : The Chair will state to the delegate 
from Illinois that pending the roll call no debate or interrup- 
tion can be entertained except when upon the call of the name 
of a State its vote is challenged. At the end of the roll call 
the Chair will consider whether or not it be then in order to 
entertain the suggestion of the delegate from Illinois. 

Governor Altgeld : Then I ask that at the conclusion of 
the roll call I be recognized to renew the point of order. 

When order was restored the secretary proceeded with 
the roll call. Ohio announced forty-six nays, and the vote 
was challenged. The poll of the State showed the follow- 
ing result: 39 nays, 7 yeas. 



Democratic National Convention. 165 

Mr. Sloane, of Ohio : Ohio has the unit rule and I state 
that her 46 votes are recorded no. 

The roll call then proceeded thus: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Oregon 8 

Pennsylvania 64 

Rhode Island 8 

South Carolina IS 

South Dakota 8 • 

Tennessee 24 

Texas 30 

Utah 6 

Vermont 8 

When Virginia was called, the Chairman of the delega 
tion announced the vote as twenty-four nays; but the state- 
ment was challenged by Hon. Michael Glennan, and the 
Chairman ordered the Secretary of the Convention to call 
the roll of the delegates, which was done. The roll call 
having been completed, the Chair announced the result as 
6 yeas and i8 nays, and stated that under the unit rule, 
Virginia would cast her twenty-four votes nay. The roll 
call was then concluded as follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Washington 4 4 

West Virginia 2 10 

Wisconsin, 24 

Wyoming 6 

Alaska , 6 

District of Columbia 1 5 

Oklahoma 6 

New Mexico 6 

Indian Territory 6 

After the Secretary had computed the ballot, the Chair- 
rnan announced the result of the vote as follows: Yeas, 
368; nays, 558; absent or not voting, 4. The detailed vote 
was as follows: 



166 



Official Proceedings of the 



States. 


(A 

< 

H 
O 


cA 
< 
w 


>* 
< 


H 
Z 

w 

< 


6 
o> 


Alabama 


22 

16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

6 

8 

20 

6 

72 

22 

6 

46 

8 

64 

8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 

24 

6 

6 

6 

6 

6 

6 


"ii 

4 

12 

6 

8 

"io 

15 

27 
28 
13 

"*"8 
20 

'"72 
1 

"64 

8 

"'8 
""8 

"4 

2 
24 

'"'(3 
.... 


22 

16 
6 
4 






Arkansas 




California 


1 




Colorado 




Connecticut ' 




Delaware. 








Florida 








Georgia 


26 
6 
48 
22 
26 
20 
26 
16 






Idaho 






Illinois 




Indiana 




Iowa 






Kansas 






Kentucky 












rvlaine 




9, 




1 
3 






Massachusetts 










Minnesota 


4 
18 
34 

6 
16 

6 


1 




Missouri 












Nebraska 












New H ampshire 














Ne w M exico 


6 












North Carolina 


21 

6 
46 

8 












Ohio 












Pennsylvania 






South Carolina .' . 


"is 

"24 

30 
6 






Tennessee 












Utah 












Virginia 


24 

4 

10 






West Virginia 
















Wyoming 


6 












Arizona 


6 
5 
6 
6 










Oklahoma 


















930 


368 


558 


2 


■ 9, 







V 

Democratic National ConventioI . 167 

For thirty minutes there was noise, confusioxi, cheers, 
etc.; when order was restored the Chairman said: 

The Chair: The question now recurs upon the adoption 
of the report of the majority. 

The question of the adoption of the majority report was 
then put. 

The Chair : By the sound, the ayes seem to have it. 
The ayes have it, the majority report is adopted. 

The Chair : Is the Committee on Pennanent Organiza- 
tion ready to report? I present Gen, E, B. Fini.ey, of Ohio, 
the Chairman of the Committee on Permanent Organization. 

Gen. FiNLEY : Gentlemen of the Convention: I am 
directed by your Committee on Permanent Organization to 
report to you for your consideration the following names as 
your permanent officers : 

For Permanent President of the Convention, Senator 
Stephen M. White, of California. 

For Permanent Secretary, Thomas J. Cogan, of Ohio. 

For Reading Clerk, E. B. Wade, of Tennessee. 

For Sergeant-at-Arms, John I. Martin, of Missouri. 

For Assistant Secretary, Louis D. Hirshheimer, of Illi- 
nois. 

For Assistant Reading Clerks, N. R, Walker, of Florida ; 
F. Jeff Pollard, of Missouri ; Lincoln Dixon, of Louisiana ; 
William E. Thompson, of Michigan, and Chas. Nickell, of 
Oregon. 

The Committee ratifies and suggests to this Convention for 
honorary Vice-Presidents and honorary Secretaries and the 
members of the Notification Committee and National Demo- 
cratic Committee, the gentlemen severally named by States 
and Territories. Mr, Chairman, I move the adoption of the 
report of the Committee. 

The Chair : It is moved and seconded that the report of 
the Committee on Permanent Organization be adopted. 

Mr. McKnight of Michigan : May I inquire whether or 



168 Official Proceedings of the 

not the National Committeeman of Michigan is included in 
that report, and also the various other Convention officers. 

Mr. FiNLEY : The report embraces the National Com- 
mitteemen. 

Mr. McKnight : I desire to ask at this time that the 
Michigan delegation be allowed time to confer together 
before they can make a report. If there is any report for 
that Committee, we ask that it be withdrawn. 

The Chair : The gentleman rises to a parliamentary 
inquiry and desires to know from the Chairman of the Com- 
mittee on Permanent Organization whether or not his report 
embraces the names of the members of the National Commit- 
tee suggested by the States, and, if so, whether or not the 
State of Michigan is included. 

Mr. Finley: I answer that, Mr. Chairman, the report 
of the Committee does embrace the several National Commit- 
teemen reported by the several States and Territories, and 
embraces one also from Michigan. 

The Chair: The Chair suggests to the gentleman from 
Michigan, that he can ask for the reading of the entire report. 

A Michigan Delegate : What are the names from 
Michigan? 

Mr. McKnight : That is a report made by members who 
are, a part of them, unseated, and we ask that the part in ref- 
erence to Mich'gan be passed for the present, and I will make 
a motion that the names of the National Committeemen and 
the officers and members of this Convention that have been 
sent in be withdrawn and omitted from the report until we 
have an opportunity to caucus and report these various names 
of officers. 

The Chair : The Chairman will state to the delegate 
from Michigan that he can request that the whole report be 
read and he will be recognized ; or to offer an amendment 
if it be done upon demand of the delegation from Michigan. 

Mr. Hummer, of Michigan : The delegation from 



Democratic National Convention. 169" 

Michigan is not ready to vote on that question. I therefore 
move you that the report be adopted excepting as to Michigan. 

General Finley : On yesterday in behalf of the contest- 
ing delegates from South Dakota I raised the objection to the 
several contesting delegates being reported to the several 
committees, but the Chairman ruled as a point of order that 
until the Committee on Credentials had disposed of it that 
the several delegates on the rolls could be recognized. Con- 
sequently, w^hen your Committee on Organization met, we 
had to consider the several Committeemen and the several 
Vice-Presidents that had been reported to this Convention. 
It has been requested by the Chair that I again read the re- 
port of the Committee on Permanent Organization. The 
language of the report in regard to that is as follows : 

"'The names of honorary Vice-President, honorary Secre- 
tary, Notification Committee, and member of National Dem- 
ocratic Committee are ratified as sent in by the Chairmen of 
the respective State delegations." 

The Chair recognized Mr. C. J. Smythe, of Nebraska. 

Mr. Smytjie : I desire, sir, in behalf of the Nebraska dele- 
gation, which has been seated this morning, to hand up the 
correct list of the officers which Vv^e desire placed upon the 
list. The National Committeeman is W. H. Thompson, and 
not the one handed in yesterday. 

The Chair : The delegate from Nebraska asks that the 
following names be substituted for the names reported by the 
Committee on Permanent Organization as the names of the per- 
sons chosen by the delegates from the State of Nebraska for 
the positions named. Is that correct? 

Mr. Smythe, of Nebraska : That is correct, Mr. Chair- 
man. 

The list handed up by Mr. Smythe was read by the 
Clerk as follows: 

Chairman of the Delegation — C. J. Smythe. 
Committee on Credentials — C. Hollenbeck. 



170 Official Proceedings of the 

Committee on Permanent Organization — J. C. Luik- 

HARY. 

Committee on Rules and Order of Business — W. D. 
Oldham. 

Committee on Resolutions — W. J. Bryan. 

Honorary Vice-President — Charles H. Brown. 

Honorary Secretary — F. A. Thompson, 

Notification Committee — John A. Creighton. 

Member of Democratic National Committee — William H. 
Thompson. 

The Chairman : Gentlemen, the question is on the 
adoption of the amendment offered by the delegate from. 
Nebraska to the report of the Committee on Permanent 
Organization. 

The Chair recognized Mr. G. Gilbert, of Kentucky. 

Mr. Gilbert : I want to say, as a member of that Com.- 
mittee on Permanent Organization, that blanks have been 
filled up by each State and Territory similar in form and sub- 
stance to the. one submitted by the delegate from Nebraska, 
and I suggest to the Convention that the Committee on Per- 
manent Organization considered that all of those forms and 
all of those officers were reported upon and acted upon by the 
Committee on Permanent Organization and that the time of 
this Convention ought not to be consumed by reading the 
forty-eight reports of substantially the same character, of the 
stereotyped form, that are embodied in the report as presented, 
by the Chairman of the Committee. 

The Chair put the question on the amendment offered 
by Mr. Smythe, of Nebraska, and declared the amendments 
carried. 

The Chair : Is there any other amendment? 

Mr. Stevenson : I move that so much of the report sub- 
mitted by the Committee on Permanent Organization as con- 
cerns the persons elected by the delegation of Michigan be 
recommitted to the Committee on Permanent Organization. 

The question on the amendment was put and carried. 



Democratic National Convention. 171 

The Chair : The question now recurs upon the adoption 
of the report of the Committee on Permanent Organization. 

The report was thereupon adopted as amended. 

The Chair : The delegate from Michigan moves that so 
much of the report submitted by the Committee on Permanent 
Organization as concerns the persons selected by the delegation 
from Michigan be recommitted to that Committee. 

Mr. Stevenson : On that we demand a call of the roll. 
{Cries of No! No!) 

The motion was adopted, viva voce. 

The Chair : It is moved that a committee of three be 
appointed to wait upon the Permanent President of this organi- 
zation and escort him to the chair. 

This motion was adopted. 

The Chair : The Chair appoints Gen. Finley, of Ohio, 
Judge McCoNNELL, of Illinois, and Senator George Vest, 
of Missouri, as such committee. 

When this committee had escorted the new Chairman 
to the platform, Temporary Chairman Daniel turned to 
the Convention and said: 

Mr. Daniel : Gentlem^^n of the Convention : In retiring 
from the Chair, which I have had the honor to occupy by your 
partial suffrage, I beg to extend to each and all of the mem.- 
bership of this Convention my cordial acknowledgment and 
thanks for the courtesy and consideration they have shown 
me. And I am happy now to present to you your Permanent 
Chairman in the person of the distinguished Democratic Sen- 
ator from California, Stephen M. White, into whose hands 
I am proud and happy to deliver this gavel. 

Upon receiving the gavel, Chairman White said: 

Mr. White : Gentlemen of the Convention : I will detain 
you with no extended speech. (Applause.) I see I am get- 



172 Official Proceedings of the 

ting popular already. The Democratic party is here repre- 
sented by delegates who have come from the iltlantic and 
Pacific shores. Every State has its full quota ; every State, 
so far as I can bring about such a result, shall have full, equal, 
absolute and impartial treatment from this stand. Every 
State is entitled to such treatment ; every question should be 
considered carefully and deliberately, and when the voice of 
this Convention is crystallized into a judgment it should be 
binding upon all true Democratic members of this Convention. 

We differ, perhaps, to-day upon certain vital issues, and 
we might express some feelings of bitterness in these discus- 
sions, but we submit to the voice and the candid judgment of 
our brethren, and upon that judgment we will certainly rely. 
Time passes as we stand here ; it leaves many with unsatisfied 
ambition. It leaves numerous aspirations and hopes unreal- 
ized. Men now prominent will pass away — some to oblivion 
while they live — and others, because they have been sum- 
moned to another shore ; but the Democratic party will not 
die, even when we all have ceased to live. 

When the differences which challenge consideration 
to-night have passed into history, when the asperities of this 
hour no longer obtain, the Democratic party, the guardian of 
the people's rights and the representative of the sentiments of 
the United States in support of constitutional right, will 
endure to bless mankind. 

My ambition or yours is of but little moment. Whether I 
succeed, or you, in impressing sentiments upon this Convention 
is not of supreme importance. In this council chamber the 
Democratic party looks for an indication of its existence. The 
people seek here the righting of their wrongs, and the consti- 
tution — the great charter of our liberties — here must find its 
best, its truest and its most loyal defenders. No sectionalism 
whatever ; equal, impartial justice to all in this land ; the tri- 
umph of the people's cause, as here exemplified and expressed, 
is the object for which we have assembled, and to carry out 
that object I will consecrate my best exertions. 

Hon. W. A. Clarke, of Montana, obtained the floor, 
and, holding aloft a solid silver gavel, the product of the 
silver mines of Montana, addressed the Chair as follows: 



Democratic National Convention. 178 

Mr. W. A. Clarke : I desire, in behalf of the people of 
Butte City, the greatest mining camp on the face of this 
globe, to present this gavel to you as Chairman of this Demo- 
cratic National Convention. 

Chairman White received it, and said: 

The Chair : In the absence of objections, the Chair 
considers that he is authorized to accept this elegant donation 
made by the delegation from Montana. 

Senator Jones, of Arkansas, received recognition by 
the Chair, and said: 

Senator J. K. Jones : Before putting the motion to 
adjourn, I \vish to announce that there will be a meeting of 
the Committee on Platform and Resolutions at the room of 
that Committee, to the right of the President, to-morrow 
morning at 9 :80 o'clock. 

Chairman White recognized Hon. C. K. Smythe, of 
Nebraska, who said: '• 

Mr. Smythe : I have a resolution here which I desire to 
have submitted, with reference to tickets for the Nebraska 
delegation, w^hich has been seated. I wish to have it read, 
and move its adoption. 

The Chair : I presume that there is no objection to the 
resolution enforcing their desire; in the absence of objection, 
it is so ordered. 

Mr. Tristram Goldthwaite, of Maine : I move that 
the Convention do no^v adjourn until to-morro^v at 10 o'clock 

This motion was adopted and the Convention adjourned 
to Thursday, July 9, 1896, at 10 o'clock A. M. 

The following list of delegates from the different States 
and Territories are entitled to seats in this Convention as 
delegates as reported by the Committee on Credentials: 



174 



Official Proceedings of the 



LIST OF DELEGATES. 







ALABAMA. 








AT 


LARGE. 






A. H. Keller. 






John H. Bankhead. 




A. 0. Lane. 






John B. Knox. 


District. 






District. 




1st 


. .D. R. Burgess. 
J. H. Minge. 




6th 


...H. B. Foster. 
Sam Carpenter. 


2nd. ... 


..Tenn.ent Lomax, 
W. L. Parks. 




7th 


. .L. L. Cochran. 
G. C. Almon. 


3rd 


..W. R. Painter. 
T. P. Hiidmon. 




8th 


. .R. E. Spraggins. 
J. E. Brown. 


4th 


. .R. T. Goodwyn. 
C. W. Hooper. 




9th 


. .€. E. Waller. 
J. W. Tomlinson. 


5th 


. . A. J. Driver. 
W. D. McCurdy. 












ARKANSAS. 








AT LARGE. 






James K. Jones. 






Carroll Armstrong. 




James H. Berry. 






T. T. W. Tillar. 


District. 






District. 




1st 


. . . Charles Coffin. 
John B. Driver. 




4th 


..J.G.Wallace. 
George A. Mansfield 


2nd 


. . S. M. Taylor. 
John J. Sumpter. 




5th 


. .B. R, Davidson. 
Philip D. Scott. 


3rd 


. . .Paul Jones. 
W. K. Ramsey. 




6th 


..J. W. Crockett. 
A. S. Layton. 




( 


CALIFORNIA. 








AT 


LARGE. 






Stephen M. White. 




J. V. Coleman. 




W. W. Foote. 






James G. Maguire. 


District. 






District. 




1st 


. . .Henry E. Wise. 
Thos. B. Dozier. 




5th ' 


. ..Dr. W. F. Ragan. 
Augustus Lion. 


2nd.... 


. . .Thos. T. Lane. 
A. Caminetti. 




6th 


. . .T. F. Darmody. 
William R. Bourke. 


3rd 


. . .R. M. Fitzgerald. 
E. E. Leake. 




7th 


. . .Oscar A. Trippet. 
George E. Church. 


4tb 


...J. J. Dwyer. 

Louis F. Metzger 









Democratic National Convention 



175 



District. 
1st 



COLORADO. 

AT LARGE. 



Charles S. Thomas. 
Adair Wilson. 

Robert W. Speer. 
Edward J. McCarty. 



District. 
2nd... 



Thomas J. O'Donnell. 
B. O. Sweeney. 

Harry H. Seldom ridge. 
Samuel I. Hallett. 



CONNECTICUT. 



AT LARGE. 





Miles B. Preston. 






Thomas M. Waller 




Lynde Harrison. 






James Aldis. 


District. 






District. 




1st 


. ,E. D. Coogan. 
Lyman T. Tingier. 




3rd..... 


. .W. H. Shields. 
Frederick T. Morrell, 


2nd.... 


..Wilham Kennedy. 
Horace B. Butler. 




4th 


. .Charles P. Lyman. 
M. J. Houlihan. 




DELAWARE. 








AT 


LARGE. 





Hon. George Gray. 
Dr. B. L. Lewis. 



Willard Saulsbury. 
John F. Saulsbury. 





FIRST DISTRICT. 






William H. Boyce. 


Harry C. Pening 






FLORIDA. 








AT LARGE. 






Robert W. Davis 


. 


T. J. Appleyard. 




Francis B. Carter 


. 


D. D. Lukenbill 


District. 




District, 




1st 


..J. Ed. O'Brien. 


2nd..... 


. .G. B, Sparkman. 




C. B. Rogers. 


GEORGIA. 

AT LARGE. 


Nat. R. Walker. 




Evan P. Howell. 




Patrick W^alsh. 




H. T. Lewis. 




J. Pope Brown. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


..JohnC. Dell. 


4th 


..R. 0. Howard. 




J. A. Brannen. 




J. S. Anderson. 


2nd.... 


..E. L.Wright. 


5th 


. .R. D. Spalding. 




Jno. E. Donalson. 




J. A. Morrow. 


3rd 


. . .J. T. Hill. 


6th 


. .C. T. Zachry. 




F. C. Houser. 




Buford M. Davis. 



176 



Official Proceedings of the 



District. 






District. 




7th 


. . .W. M. Gammon. 
J. M. McBride. 




10th 


. . .Ira E. Farmer. 
George W. Warrei 


8th...... 


. ..W. B. Burnett. 
\V. P. McWhorter. 




11th 


. ..C. R. Pendleton. 
W. H. Clements. 


^th 


. .Tyler M. Peoples. 
Howard Thompson 












IDAHO. 








AT 


LARGE. 






H. C. Shafer. 






G. V. Bryan. 




W. H. Watt. 






Barry N. Hillard, 



FIRST DISTRICT. 



Timothy Regan. 



J. C. Rich. 



ILLINOIS. 

AT LARGE. 



John P. Altgeld. 
W. H. Hinrichsen. 

District. 

1st A. S. Trude. 

Jesse Sherwood, 
^nd Edward Tilden. 

Thos. Byrne. 
3rd Charles Martin. 

Jno. C. Schubert. 
4th Jno. Powers. 

Wm. Loeffler. 
5th John J. Brennan. 

M. C. McDonald. 
6th Henry F. Donovan. 

Jos. S. Martin. 
'7th Wm. Prentiss. 

Jas. Burke. 
8th Mark W. Dunham. 

J. D. Donovan. 
9th Frank M. Barron. 

Samuel Ray. 
10th C. K. Ladd. 

Jas. T. Wasson. 
11th G. W. Stipp. 

E. M. Johnson. 



Samuel P. McConnell. 
George W. Fithian. 

District. 

12th Dr. M. Gushing. 

Free P. Morris. 
13th Wm. E. Krebs. 

J. T. Heffernan. 
14th N. E. Worthington. 

W. H. Masters. 
15th Felix Regnier. 

B. P. Preston. 
16th Frank Robinson. 

A. M. Bell. 
17th T. T. Beach. 

H, W. Clendenin. 
18th A. W. Hope. 

C. W. Bliss. 
19th R. N. Stotler. 

H. S. Tanner. 
20th Wm. H. Green. 

J. R. Williams. 
21st J. N. Perrin. 

W. A. J. Sparks. 
22nd L. O. Whitnel. 

Wm. W. Clemens. 



Democratic National Convention. 



177 



INDIANA. 



AT LARGE. 



Daniel W. Voorhees. 
G. V. Menzies. 

District. 

1st James R. Goodwin. 

C. B. McCormack. 
2nd W. A. Cullop. 

John H. O'Neall. 
8rd George H. Voigt. 

A. P. Fenn. 
4th John Overmeyer. 

Joseph Matlock. 
5th Eb. Henderson. 

S. M. McGregor. 
6th U. S. Jackson. 

D. W. Andre. 
7th Wm. E. English. 

Charles M. Cooper. 



David Turpie. 
James McCabe. 

District. 

8th Ralph S. Gregory. 

W. A. Humphries. 
9th Daniel Sims. 

Eli Marvin, 
loth James Murdock. 

J. A. Lautmann. • 
11th S. E. Cook. 

John T, Strange, 
12th Henry Colerick. 

Joseph Washburn. 
13th John B. Stoll. 

Preston F. Miles. 







IOWA. 








AT LARGE. 






Horace Boies. 




S. B. Evans. 




Will A. Wells. 




Louis T. Genung 


District. 




District. 




1st 


. . W. H. Stackhouse. 


7th 


...M. H. King. 




W. R. Wherry. 




J. S. Cunningham. 


2nd 


. .May Mayer. 


8th 


. . .S. A. Brewster. 




T. M. Gobble. 




Charles Thomas. 


3rd 


..J. S. Murphy. 


9th 


...F. D.Allen. 




D. C. Filkins. 




W. H. Ware. 


4th 


. .T. Donovan. 


10th... 


. . .R. F. Jordan. 




F. D. Bayless. 




C. C. Colclo. 


5th 


..T. F. Bradford. 


11th.... 


..T. P. Murphy. 




T. M. Terry. 




C. L. Soister. 


6th 


..H. C. Taylor. 
W. A. Mclntyre. 










KANSAS. 








at large. 






John Martin. 




David Overmyer. 




J. D. McCleverty 




Frank Bacon. 




J. H. Atwood. 




James McKinstry 



12 



178 



Official Proceedings of the 



District, 




District. 




1st 


, . . Moses Saurback. 


5th 


. . .C. W. Brandenburg. 




J. B. Taylor. 




C. P. Carstenson. 


2nd 


, . S. A. RigRS. 


6th 


...John B. Rea. 




L. C. Stine. 




E, G. Collins. 


3rd 


. . . J. H. Cushingberry. 


7th 


. . .J. H. Haymaker. 




J. Mack Love. 




C. F. Diffenbacher. 


4th 


. . .J. G. Johnson. 

Charles Stackhouse. 








KENTUCKY. 


« 




AT 


LARGE. 






J. C. S. Blackburn. 




P. Wat. Hardin. 




W. T. Ellis. 




John S. Rhea. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


. ..Ollie M. Tames. 


7th 


, . T. E. Moore. 




J. D. Mocquot. 




R. F. Peake. 


2nd 


, . . J. F. Dempsey. 


8th 


, ..G. G. Gilbert. 




E. P. Millett. 




Robert F. Thompson 


3Td 


. . .J. M. Richardson. 


9th 


, . .George R. Vincent. 




Ben T. Perkins. 




G. W. Bramlett. 


4th 


. . .David R. Murray. 


10th 


, . .John S. Garner. 




Robert Lancaster. 




George B. Clay. 


5th 


. . Zach Phelps. 


11th.... 


. .C. M. Sales. 




W. B. Haldeman. 




Ben V. Smith. 



6th... 



.N. S.Walton. 
J. T. Scott. 



LOUISIANA. 

AT LARGE. 



S. D. McEnery. 
S. M. Robertson. 



District. 
1st ... 



2nd, 
3rd. 



District. 

4th. . . . 



.Thomas Duffy. 

Victor Manberret. 
.Peter Farrell. 5th.. 

L. H. Marrero. 
• Edmund C. McCollam. 6th.. 

Jos. St. Amant. 

MAINE. 

AT LARGE. 

Seth C. Gordon. 
Frederic W. Plaisted. 



District. 

1st.... 



2nd, 



E. B. Winslow. 
Tristram Goldthwaite. 
, C. Vey Holman. 
J. H. Sherman. 



District. 

3rd.... 



4th. 



N. C. Blanchard. 
John Fitzpatrick. 

.H. W. Ogden. 
B. W. Marston. 
.R. H. Snyder. 
S. T. Baird. 
, T. S. Fontenot. 
T. J. Kernan. 



John Scott. 
Charles L. Snow. 

.Fred Emery Beane. 
L. B. Deasy. 
.Richard W. Sawyer. 
Ara Warren. 



Democratic National Convention. 



179^ 



MARYLAND. 



AT LARGE. 



John E. Hurst. 
Chas. C. Homer. 
John P. Poe. 
*Charles C. Crothers. 



District. 




District. 


1st 


. . .Henry R. Lewis. 
John R. Patterson. 


4th 


2nd.... 


. .Frederick von Kapff. 
Thos. H. Robinson. 


5th 


3rd 


. . .John Hannibal. 
Louis M. Duvall. 
*By Murray Vandiver. 


6th 



Richard M. Venable. 
John Gill. 
Edwin Warfield. 
Marion DeKalb Smith 

James W. McElroy. 
Wm. T. Biedler. 
Wm. B. Clagett. 
Dr. Geo. H. Jones. 
Spencer Watkins. 
Henry F. Wingert. 



MASSACHUSETTS. 



at large. 



District. 

1st.... 



2nd, 

3rd. 

4th. 

5th. 

6th. 

7th. 



John W. Corcoran. 
George Fred Williams. 

John C. Crosby. 

Michael Connors. 
. Selig Manilla. 

Ralph L. Atherton. 
.Andrew Athy. 

John O'Gara. 
.Robert M. Burnett. 

Herbert H. Lyons. 
• Jeremiah T. O'Sullivan. 

Peter H. Donohue. 
.Thomas A. Devin. 

Edward J. Donahue. 
.Joseph J. Corbett. 

Samuel K, Hamilton. 



John E. Russell. 
James Donovan. 

District. 

8th John F. O'Brien. 

Frank X. Fitzpatrick. 
9th Patrick J. Kennedy. 

Martin M. Lomasney. 
10th John J. Nawn. 

F. S. Gore. 
11th Patrick Maguire. 

George F. Maxwell. 
12th William L. Douglass-, 

Joseph L, Sweet. 
13th Henry C. Thatcher. 

James T. Cummings. 



MICHIGAN. 



AT LARGE. 



District. 

1st.... 



2nd. 
3rd. 



Elliott G. Stevenson. 
R. R. Blacker. 

.W. V. Moore. 
W. A. Dwyer. 
Elmer Kirkby. 
Lester H. Salsbury. 
.James M. Powers. 
John B. Shipman. 



District. 

4th. . . . 



5th.. 
6th.. 



Thos. A. E. Weadock, 
Peter White. 

.Hannibal Hart. 
Henry Chamberlain. 
.W. F. McKnight. 
George P. Hummer.. 
.S. L. Bignall. 
Arthur R. Tripp. 



180 



Official Proceedings of the 



District. 




District. 




7th. . . . 


....F. W. Hubbard. 


10th. . . . 


..F. A. McDonald. 




M. Crocker. 




J. F, Moloney. 


.8th. . . . 


Mayor Baum. 


Uth.... 


. . .C. H. Sutherland. 




Ferdinand Brucker. 




T. J. Potter. 


'5th. . . . 


....J.S.White. 


12th. . . . 


. .E. F. Brown. 




H.J. Hoyt. 




M. J. McGee. 




MINNESOTA. 






AT 


LARGE. 






Daniel W. Lawler. 




Philip D. Winston. 




Chauncey L. Baxter. 




Logan Breckenridge 



District. 




District. 




1st 


. . .John Noonan. 


5th.... 


..A. D. Smith. 




J. F. McGovern. 




W. H. Dunahue. 


2nd.... 


. . .B. F. Voreis. 


6th 


. . .Thos. R. Foley. 




C. W. Schultz. 




Wm. R. Remer. 


3rd 


. . .Albert Schalier. 


7th.... 


.. .M. F. Noonan. 




John Sheehy. 




J. E. O'Brien. 


Aih 


..Wm. H. Harris. 
George J. Mitsch. 


MISSISSIPPL 

AT LARGE. 


' 




J. Z. George. 




E. C. Walthall. 




H. D. Money 


R. H. Henry. 


A. J. McLaurin 


iDistrict. 




District. 




Ist 


..W.J. Lamb. 


5th 


..*W. P.-Tackett. 




C. M. Johnson. 


* 


R. F. Cochran. 


:2nd 


,.J. R. Stowers. 


6th 


..fD. M. Watkins. 




R. W. Bailey. 




JM. Quinn. 


:§rd 


. .William T. Verge 


r. 7th 


. . ,H. Cassidy. 




Patrick Henry. 




Ben H. Wells. 


4th 


...W. S. Hill. 
Walter Price. 


MISSOURL 

AT LARGE. 


' 




G. G. Vest. 




F. M. Cockrill. 




W. J. Stone. 




George W. Alh 



^Represented by T. F. Pettus. 
tRepresented by W. A. Taylor. 
+Represented by Geo. M. Govan. 



Democratic National Convention. 



181 



District. 

1st Dr. R. Gillespie. 

John A. Knott. 
2nd William M. Eads. 

C. B. Crawley, Jr. 
3rd W. W. Mosby. 

John A. Cross. 
4th C. F. Cochran. 

Wm. E. Ellison. 
5th J. D. Shewalter. 

J. W. Mercer. 
6th D. A. DeArmond. 

Wm. S. Byram. 
7th E. W. Stephens. 

E. A. Barbour. 
8th L. V. Stephens. 

James F. Bradshaw. 



District. 

9th Thomas R. Gibson. 

William L. Gupton. 
10th John W. Booth. 

John T. Gibson. 
11th Hugh J. Brady. 

Nicholas M. Bell. 
12th M. C. Wetmore. 

Charles R. Gregory. 
13th .E.G. Lysle. 

James F. Green. 
14th Marshall Arnold. 

W. N. Evans. 
15th M. E. Benton. 

J. W. Halliburton. 



W. A. Clark. 
E. D. Matts. 



Paul A. Fusz. 



MONTANA. 

AT LARGE. 
FIRST DISTRICT. 



S. T. Houser. 
W. G. Downing. 

Dr. J. M. Fox. 



NEBRASKA. 



AT LARGE. 



W. J. Bryan. 

W. H. Thompson. 

District. 

1st Frank J. Morgan. 

Chas. S. Stone. 
2nd Jno. A, Creighton. 

Chas. H. Brown. 
3rd C. Hollenbeck. 

J. C. Luikart. 



C. J. Smythe. 
W. D. Oldham. 

District. 

4th C. J. Bowlby. 

Ed. Biggs. 
5th P. Walsh. 

F. A, Thompson. 
6th Dr. A. T. Blackburn. 

J. C. Dahlman. 



R. P. Keating. 
John Sparks. 



NEVADA. 

AT LARGE. 



FIRST DISTRICT. 



Jacob Klein. 
Dr. J. W. Petty. 



J. C. Hagerman. 



Jos. Raycraft. 



•182 



Official Proceedings of the 





NEW 


HAMPSHIRE. 

AT LARGE 




Frank Jones. 






Irving W. Drew. 




District. 




District. 


1st...... 


. .Gordon Woodbury. 


2nd 



Herbert J. Jones. 



Alvah H. SuUoway. 
Chas. A. Sinclair. 

Amos N. Blondin. 
Jeremiah J. Doyle. 



NEW JERSEY. 

AT LARGE. 

James Smith, Jr. Rufus Blodgett. 

Albert Tallman. Allen McDermont. 

District. District. 

1st Henry M. Harley. 5th Henry D, Winson. 

Geo. M. Betchner. Munson Force. 

2nd James W. Lanning. 6th Gottfried Krueger. 

B. Frank Budd. Edward P. Meany. 

3rd Geo. A. Hel-ne. 7th Wm. D. Daly. 

James J, Bergen, Wm. D. Edwards. 

4th Lewis J. Martin. 8th Fred C. Marsh. 

Elias C. Drake. T hos. F. Noonan. 



NEW YORK. 

AT LARGE. 



David B. Hill. 
Edward Murphy. 

District. 

1st .Perry Belmont. 

W. A. Hazard. 
2nd William C. DeWitt. 

P. J. Carlin. 
3rd John Delmar. 

Bird S. Coler. 
4th Daniel Ryan. 

John J. O'Keefe. 
5th James D. Bell. 

James Moffett. 
6th Bernard Gallagher. 

Rudolph C. Bacher. 
7th Franklin Bartlett. 

John R. Fellows. 
8th Amos J. Cummings. 

Thomas F. Grady. 



Roswell P. Flower. 
Frederic C. Coudert. 

District. 

9th John F. Ahern. 

Henry M. Goldfogle. 
10th James W. Boyle. 

John C. Sheehan. 
11th C. C. Baldwin. 

William Sulzer. 
12th Francis M. Scott. 

George B. McClellan. 
13th James O'Gorman. 

De Lancey Nicol. 
14th Hugh J. Grant. 

John D. Crimmins. 
15th Thomas F. Gilroy. 

Ashbel P. Fitch. 
16th Henry D. Purroy. 

Francis Larkin. 



Democratic National Convention. 



183 



District 

17th Arthur McLean. 

Frank Comesky, 
18th James W. Hinckley. 

John G. Van Etten. 

19th Francis J. Molloy. 

*James Purcell. 
20th Erastus Corning. 

Charles Tracy. 
21st Geradus Smith. 

James H. Brown. 
22nd Thomas Spratt. 

Robert A. x^nibal. 
23rd Thomas F. Conway. 

Edward T. Stokes. 
24th Fred C. Schraub. 

James R. O'Gorman. 
25th Henry W. Bently. 

Clinton Beckwith. 



District. 

26th James C. Truman. 

Elliott F. Danforth. 
27th William M. Kirk. 

D. Monroe Hill. 
28th Thomas Osborn. 

Henry V. L. Jones. 
29th Dr. Barnes. 

F. G. Babcock. 
30th James A. Hanlon. 

E. A. Dodgson. 

31st A. E. Rickson Perkins. 

James L. Whalen. 
32nd Daniel N. Lockwood. 

Norman E. Mack. 
33rd....... Wilson S. Bissell. 

Joseph Mayer. 
34th Thomas Troy. 

Thomas O'Connor. 



NORTH CAROLINA. 



AT LARGE. 



John R. Webster. 
E. J. Hale. 

District. 

1st Charles F. Warren. 

B. B. Winborne. 
2nd Jesse W^. Grainger. 

T. L. Emry. 
3rd P. M. Pearsell. 

J. H. Currie. 
4th M. W. Page. 

Wm. C. Hammer. 
5th N. B. Cannady. 

Dr. E. Fulp. 





Thomas J. Jarvis. 




Alfred M. Waddell 


District. 




6th 


...W. C. Dowd. 




Joseph A. Brown. 


7th 


. ..Theo. F. Kluttz. 




W. D. Turner. 


8th 


. . .E. B. Jones. 




Dr. B. F. Dixon. 


9th 


...W. E. Moore. 




G. S. Powell. 



NORTH DAKOTA. 

AT LARGE. 

Wm. N. Roach. 
J. B. Eaton. 

FIRST DISTRICT. 

James H. Holt. 

♦Represented by J. Van Ness Phillips. 



M. F. Williams. 
H, R. Hartman. 



F. A. Wilson. 



184 



Official Proceedings of the 



District. 

1st.... 



2nd... 
3rd.... 
4th.... 
5th.... 
6th. . . . 
7th.... 
8th.... 
9th.... 
10th... 
11th. . 



OHIO. 

AT LARGE. 

John R. McLean. E. B. Finley. 

A, W. Thurman. L. E. Holden. 

District. 

Lewis G. Bernard. 12th James Kilbourne. 

Thos. T. Mulvihill. M. A. Daugherty. 

L. J. Dolle. 13th Reuben Turner. 

Thos. J. Cogan. Frank Hollbrook. 

, Peter Schwab. 14th Cyrant D. Holliday. 

John C. Patterson. Frank Harper. 

John C. Clarke. 15th Charles A. Richardson. 

Robert B. Gordon, Jr. A. J. Andrews. 

J. K. Kaunneke. 16th D. McConville. 

Levi X. Jacobs. R. W. McCommon. 

Ulric Sloan. 17th A. W. Patrick. 

M. R. Denver. John W. Cassingham. 

A. L. Claypool. 18th Wilson S. Potts. 

G. S. Long. Conrad Schweitzer. 

F. M. Marriott. 19th C. A. Corbin. 

Phil M. Crow. L T. Siddall. 

Barton Smith. 20th Horace Alford. 

William Gordon. John B. Foster. 

Thomas B. H. Jones. 21st Tom L. Johnson. 

C. E. Crawford. S. A. Holding. 

John H. Blacker. 
Virgil C. Lowry. 







OREGON. 


. 






AT 


LARGE. 






M. A. Miller. 






J. H. Townsend. 




J. W. Howard. 






Dr. J. Welch. 


District. 






District. 




1st 


. .J. D. McKennon. 
Charles Nickell. 




2nd 


..Dr. Mullinix. 
W. F. Butcher. 



PENNSYLVANIA. 

AT LARGE. 



William F. Harrity. 
J. Henry Cochran. 
John Todd, M. D. 
John S. Rilling. 



Robert E. Wright. 
Charles A. Fagan. 
Benjamin F. Meyers. 
John T. Lenanan. 



Democratic National Convention. 



185 



District. District. 

1st George W. Gibbons. 15th Miller S. Allen. 

Henry C. Loughlin. John M. Rahm. 

2nd Charles E. IngersoU. 16th John J. Reardon. 

Louis J. McGrath. William Dent. 

3rd Thomas J. Ryan. 17th D. dinger. 

Matthew Dittmann. Grant Herring. 

4th Thomas Delahunty. 18th Jay G. Weiser. 

Gustavus A. MuUer. Thomas C. Barber. 

5th John Taylor. 19th H. N. Gitt. 

Edward F. Bennis. F. E. Beltzhoover. 

6th Frank B. Rhodes. 20th Joseph A. Gray. 

J. Frank E. Hause. Americas Enfield. 

7th Paul H.Applebach. 21st W. A. McCullough. 

Edward F. Kane. John B. Keenan. 

8th Frank P. Sharkey. 22nd George S. Fleming. 

Howard Mutchler. E. J. Frauenheim. 

9th W. Oscar Miller. 23rd Samuel W. Black. 

F. F. Bressler. Hay Walker, Jr. 

10th Richard M. Reilly. 24th Frank Thompson. 

H. E. Haldeman. A. F. Silveus. 

11th C. G. Boland. 25th Robert Ritchie. 

Joseph O'Brien. Stephen Markham. 

12th Elliott P. Kisner. 26th W^illiam H. GaskiU. 

John M. Garmar>. Frank E. McLean. 

13th James Ellis. 27th Charles H. Noyes. 

William A. Marr. Charles O. Laymon, 

14th John A, Magee. 28th James Knox Polk Hall. 

S. P. Light. Matt Savage. 

RHODE ISLAND. 

AT LARGE. 

Richard B. Comstock. George W. Greene. 

Miles A. McNamee Jesse H. Metcalf. 

District. 

James J. Van Alen. 2d John H. Tucker. 

David S. Baker. John E. Conley. 



District. 

1st.... 



SOUTH CAROLINA. 







at large. 






B. R. Tillman. 




John G. Evans 




D. J. Bradham. 




W. H. Ellerbe 


District. 




District 




1st 


. .M. R. Cooper. 


3rd 


...J. H. McCalla. 




Thomas Martin. 




J. B. Watson. 


2nd 


. ..M. B. AlcSweeny. 


4th 


...J. C. Walling. 




B. L. Caughman. 




J. D. M. Shaw. 



186 



Official Proceedings of the 



District. 




District. 




5th 


...W.F. Strait. 


7th 


. ..Oscar R, Lowman, 




T. Y. Williams. 




H. T. Abbott. 


6th 


. ..W. D. Evans. 
A. H. Williams. 







District. 

1st.... 



SOUTH DAKOTA. 

AT LARGE. 



F. M. Stover. 
Edmund Cook. 

.George H. Culver. 
S. V. Arnold. 



District. 

2nd... 



J. E. Carland. 
S. A. Ramsey, 

.James M. Woods. 
W. R. Steele. 



TENNESSEE. 



AT LARGE. 





Isham G. Harris. 




Wm. B. Bate. 




E. W. Carmack. 




T. M. McConnell 


District, 




District. 




1st 


. .John K. Shields. 


6th 


...C.W.Parker. 




H. H. Gouchenour. 




Thos. Claibourne. 


2nd 


, . .John M. Davis. 


7th 


...N. B. Chiers. 




Wm. F. Park. 




Frank Boyd. 


3rd 


. . .H. C. Snodgrass. 


8th 


. . .J. W. Lewis. 




W. P. Murray. 




J. W. N. Burkett. 


4th 


. . .W. C. Dismukes. 


9th 


. . .J. B. Phillips. 




L. D. Smith. 




C. M. Hall. 


.5th 


, . .James D. Richardson. 


10th 


...A. T. McNeil. 




C. A. Armstrong. 




H. C. Moorman. 




TEXAS. 






AT 


large. 






J. W. Bailey. 




J. M. Duncan. 




J. S. Hogg. 




C. A. Culbertsqn. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


. . .John H. Reagan. 


5th 


,..H. B. Marsh. 




Horace Chilton. 




B. F. Looney. 


•2d 


, . .E. G. Center. 


6th 


, . .John L. Sheppard. 




J. W. Blake. 




Jake Hodges. 


3d 


. . .L. T. Dashiel. 


7th 


,. C. P. Randell. 




0. T. Holt. 




W. T. Beverly. 


4th 


, ..T. M. Campbell. 


8th 


, ..0. W. Odell. 




M. R. Gear. 




W. I. Hooks. 



Democratic National Committee. 



187 



District. District. 

9th Ruling P. Robertson. 18th. . . 

Chas. H. Coffield. 
10th James M. Richards. 14th. . . 

Eugene Moore. 
11th Jefferson Johnson. 15th.. . 

Heber Stone. . 
12th W. S. Robson. 

John Lovejoy. 



J. B. Dibbrell. 

R. A. Pleasants. 
.T. M. Paschall. 

W. W. Gatewood. 
.Fred Cockrell, 

J. A. Templeton. • 







UTAH. 








AT LARGE. 






Moses Thatcher. 




0. W. Powers. 




J. L. Rawlins. 




Robert C. Chambers, 




FIRST DISTRICT. 






Samuel R. Thurman. 


David Evans. 






VERMONT. 








AT LARGE. 






T. W. Maloney 




Wells Valentine. 




P. J. Farrell. 




S. C. Shurtliff. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


. .Michael Magiff. 


2d 


, . . W. H. Cramer. 




John W. McGarry 


, 


W. H. Miner. 



VIRGINIA. 

AT LARGE. 

John W. Daniel. W. A. Jones. 

Claude A. Swanson. H. S. K. Morrison. 

District. District. 

1st J. W. G. Blackstone. 6th Carter Glass. 

Thomas E. Blakey. W. P. Barksdale. 

2nd M. Glennan. 7th J. R. Wingfield. 

J. E. West. N. W. Waller. 

3rd Thomas B. Murphy. 8th S. R. Donohoe. 

A. J, Bradley. Charles M. Waite. 

4th R. G. Southall. 9th Walter E. Addison. 

Robert Turnbull. T. A. Lynch. 

5th B. L. Belt. 10th Frank T. Glasgow. 

E. G. Sutherland. Camm Patterson. 





WASHINGTON. 






AT 


LARGE. 






R. C. McCroskey. 




J. E. Fenton. 




Hugh C. Wallace. 




W. H. White. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


. .Thos. Malony 


2nd 


..John L. Sharpstein, 




Charles A. Darling. 




J. F. Girton. 



188 



Official Proceedings of the 



WEST VIRGINIA. 

AT LARGE. 





W. M. Kincaid. 




John T. McGraw. 




J. W. St. Claire. 




B. B. Harding. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


..W. E. R. Byrne. 


3rd 


.James H. Miller. 




John A. Howard. 




Lawrence E. Tierney 


2nd 


..John J. Cornwell. 


4th 


..H. S. Wilson. 




E. D. Talbott. 




J. R. Wilson. 




WISCONSIN. 






AT 


LARGE. 






Edward S. Bragg. 




Wm. F.Vilas. 




James G. Flanders. 




James J. Hogan. 


District. 




District. 




1st 


. .George M. McKee. 


6th 


.H. P. Hamilton. 




Thos. M. Kearney. 




John J. Wood, Jr. 


2nd . . . 


. James E. Malone. 


7th. ...... 


.Robert Lees. 




Wm. H, Rogers. 




A. C. Larson. 


3rd 


. .Dr. Hermann Gasser. 
Dr. W. A. Synon. 


8th 


.John H. Brennan. 






John Wattawa. 


4th 


. .Henry Hase. 


9th 


, E. J. Dockery. 




Wm. Bergenthal. 




Amos Holgate. 


5th 


..M. C. Mead. 


10th 


.R.J. Shields. 




Dr. Henry Blank. 




W. F. McNally. 




WYOMING. 






AT 


large. 






C. W. Brumel. 




Robert Foote. 




Tim Dyer. 




M. L. Blake. 




FIRST 


DISTRICT. 






John E. Osborne. 




J. W. Samman. 




ALASKA. 






AT 


LARGE.' 






Louis L. Williams. 




Charles D. Rogers. 




Richard F. Lewis. 




James Carroll. 




R. D. Crittenden. 




George R. Tingle. 




ARIZONA. 






AT 


LARGE. 






W. H. Burbage. 




H. E. Campbell. 




Wiley E. Jones. 




Jos. L. B. Alexand 




J. F. Wilson. 




W. H. Barnes. 



Democratic National Convention. 



189 



DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA. 

AT LARGE. 



John Boyle. 
Edward L. Jordan. 
Robert E. Mattingly. 



William Holmead. 
George Killeen. 
Frank P. Morgan. 



NEW MEXICO. 

AT LARGE. 



Demetrio Chaves. 
Antonio Joseph. 
John Y. Hewitt. 



W. S. Hopewell. 
M. M. Salazar. 
A. A. Jones. 



OKLAHOMA TERRITORY. 

AT LARGE. 



A. J. Beale. 
Temple Houston. 
W. S. Denton. 



Mort L. Bixler. 
E. F. Mitchell. 
H. C. Brunt. 



INDIAN TERRITORY. 

AT LARGE. 



Robt. L. Owen. 
William P. Thompson. 
Harry Campbell. 



Joseph M. Lahay. 
E. Poe Harris. 
Fol. J. Woods. 



190 Official Proceedings of the 



"rtlIRD DAY. 



MORNING SESSION. 



Chicago, July 9, 1896. 

The Convention was called to order by the Chairman^ 
Senator White, at 10:50 a. m. Senator White being 
so hoarse as to render the use of his voice very painful, 
called Hon. James D. Richardson, a delegate from Ten- 
nessee, to the Chair. 

The Chair : The Convention will be in order ; the gen- 
tlemen in the aisles will take their seats. The Convention 
will be opened with prayer by the Rev. Thomas Edward 
Green, rector of Grace Episcopal Church, of Cedar Rapids, 
Iowa. The gentlemen of the Convention will rise ; and also 
all others in the audience. 

PRAYER. 

We thank. Thee, Almighty God, for the blessing of another 
day that Thou hast given us. At its beginning we pray that 
we may be true to its responsibilities and brave for its duties. 
Especially grant Thy blessing to these, thy servants, who face 
this day the great responsibilities and duties of this Conven- 
tion. As they shall make their declaration of principles, may 
they set forth these truths that shall be founded upon the 
eternal principles of truth and justice, and that may redound 
for the benefit of all the people and the uplifting of humanity. 
And as they shall designate him who shall be their candidate 
for the chief magistracy of this great nation, guide Thou 
their minds and their voices. May they choose a man of 
clean hands and pure heart, whose aims shall be his country 



Democratic National Convention. 191 

and his God, and who may so live that mankind, by his vir- 
tues, may be lifted nearer to heaven, and so may the angels of 
peace and prosperity bless this land, and may Thy kingdom 
come in all our hearts through the blessed gospel of Jesus 
Christ, to whom, with the Father and Holy Ghost, be ascribed 
all glory now and forever more. Amen. 

The Chair : The Committee on Platform is now ready 
to report. I recognize Hon. James K. Jones, of Arkansas, 
the Chairman of this Committee. 

Senator Jones : Mr. Chairman : I am directed by the 
Committee on Resolutions and Platform to report the follow- 
ing platform and to move its adoption : 

We, the Democrats of the United States in National Con- 
vention assembled, do reaffirm our allegiance to those great 
essential principles of justice and liberty, upon which our 
institutions are founded, and which the Democratic Party ha& 
advocated from Jefferson's time to our own — freedom of speech, 
freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, the preservation 
of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the law,, 
and the faithful observance of constitutional limitations. 

During all these years the Democratic Party has resisted 
the tendency of selfish interests to the centralization of gov- 
ernment power, and steadfastly maintained the integrity of 
the dual scheme of government established by the founders of 
this Republic of republics. Under its guidance and teaching 
the great principle of local self-government has found its best 
expression in the maintenance of the rights of the States and 
its assertion of the necessity of confining the general 
government to the exercise of the powers granted by the 
Constitution of the United States. 

The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every 
citizen the rights of civil and religious liberty. The Demo- 
cratic Party has always been the exponent of political liberty 
and religious freedom, and it renews its obligations and reaf- 
firms its devotion to these fundamental principles of the Con- 
stitution. 

Recognizing that the money question is paramount to all 
others at this time, we invite attention to the fact that the 
Federal Constitution names silver and gold together as the 




192 Official Proceedings of the 

money metals of the United States, and that the first coinage 
law passed by Congress under the Constitution made the silver 
dollar the monetary unit and admitted gold to free coinage at 
a ratio based upon the silver-dollar unit. 

We declare that the act of 1878 demonetizing silver with- 
out the knowledge or approval of the American people has 
resulted in the appreciation of gold and a corresponding fall 
in the prices of commodities produced by the people ; a heavy 
increase in the burden of taxation and of all debts, public and 
private; the enrichment of the money-lending class at home 
and abroad ; the prostration of industry and impoverishment 
of the people. 

We are unalterably opposed to monometallism which has 
locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the par- 
alysis of hard times. Gold monometallism is a British policy, 
and its adoption has brought other nations into financial serv- 
itude to London. It is not only un-American, but anti-Amer- 
can, and it can be fastened on the United States only by the 
stifling of that spirit and love of liberty which proclaimed our 
political independence in 1776 and won it in the War of the 
Revolution. 

We demand the free and unlimited coinage of both silver 
and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting 
for the aid or consent of any other nation. 

(The speaker was here interrupted by demands all over 
the hall that he read this paragraph again.) 

Senator Jones : If the Convention will be quiet I will 
read it as many times as they want to hear it. But I am 
hoarse, and I must appeal for order, because my voice is in 
bad condition, and I cannot hope to be heard unless the gen- 
tlemen of the Convention will be quiet. I will read it again : 

" We demand the free and unlimited coinage of both silver 
and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 without waiting 
for the aid or consent of any other nation." 

We demand that the standard silver dollar shall be a full 
legal tender, equally with gold, for all debts, public and pri- 
vate, and we favor such legislation as will prevent for the 
future the demonetization of any kind of legal-tender money 
by private contract. 



Democratic National Convention. 198 

We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering 
to the holders of the obligations of the United States the 
option reserved by law to the Government of redeeming such 
obligations in either silver coin or gold coin. 

We are opposed to the issuing of interest -bearing bonds of 
the United States in time of peace and condemn the trafficking 
with banking svndicates, which, in exchange for bonds and 
at enormous profits to themselves, supply the Federal Treas- 
ury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometallism. 

Congress alone has the power to coin and issue money, 
and President Jackson declared that this power could not be 
delegated to corporations or individuals. We therefore de- 
nounce the issuance of notes intended to circulate as money 
bv National banks as in derogation of the Constitution, and 
we demand that all paper which is made legal tender for 
public and private debts, or which is receivable for dues to 
the United States, shall be issued by the Government of the 
United States and shall be redeemable in coin. 

We hold that tariff duties should be levied for purposes of 
revenue, such duties to be so adjusted as to operate equally 
throughout the country, and not discriminate between class 
or section, and that taxation should be limited by the needs 
of the Government, honestly and economically administered. 
We denounce as disturbing to business the Republican threat 
to restore the McKinley law, which has been twice con- 
demned by the people in National elections, and which, en- 
acted under the false plea of protection to home industry, 
proved a prolific breeder of trusts and monopolies, enriched 
the few at the expense of the many, restricted trade and de- 
prived the producers of the great American staples of access 
to their natural markets. 

Until the money question is settled we are opposed to any 
agitation for further changes in our tariff laws, except such as 
are necessary to meet the deficit in revenue caused by the ad- 
verse decision of the Supreme Court on the income tax. But 
for this decision by the Supreme Court, there u^ould be no 
deficit in the revenue. Under the law passed by a Democratic 
Congress in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of that 
court for nearly 100 years, that court having in that decision 

sustained Constitutional objections to its enactment which had 
13 



194 * Official Proceedings of the 

previously been overruled by the ablest Judges who have ever 
sat on the bench. We declare that it is the duty of Congress 
to use all the Constitutional power which remains after that 
decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as 
it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burden of taxation 
may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth 
may bear its due proportion of the expense of the Government. 

We hold that the most efficient way of protecting Ameri- 
can labor is to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor 
to compete with it in the home market, and that the value of 
the home market to our American farmers and artisans is 
greatly reduced by a vicious monetary system which depresses 
the prices of their product below^ the cost of production, and 
thus deprives them of the means of purchasing the products 
of our home manufactories ; and as labor creates the wealth of 
the country, we demand the passage of such laws as may be 
necessary to protect it in all its rights. 

We are in favor of the arbitration of differences betv\^een 
employers engaged in interstate commerce and their employes, 
and recommend such legislation as is necessary to carry out 
this principle. 

The absorption of wealth by the few, the consolidation of 
our leading railway systems, and the formation of trusts and 
pools require a stricter control by the Federal Government of 
those arteries of commerce. We demand the enlargement of 
the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission and such 
restrictions and guarantees in the control of railroads as will 
protect the people from robbery and oppression. 

We denounce the profligate waste of the money wrung 
from the people by oppressive taxation and lavish appro- 
priations of recent Republican Congresses, which have kept 
taxes high, while the labor that pays them is unemployed and 
the products of the people's toil are depressed in price till they 
no longer repay the cost of production. We demand a return 
to that simplicity and economy which befits a Democratic 
Government and a reduction in the number of useless oflices 
the salaries of which drain the substance of the people. 

We denounce arbitrary interference by Federal authorities 
in local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United 
States and a crime against free institutions, and we especially 



Democratic National Convention. 195 

object to government by injunction as a new and highly dan- 
gerous form of oppression by which Federal Judges, in con- 
tempt of the laws of the States and rights of citizens, become 
at once legislators, judges and executioners ; and we approve 
the bill passed by the last session of the United States Senate, 
and now^ pending in the House of Representatives, relative to 
contempt in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury in 
certain cases of contempt. 

No discrimination should be indulged in by the Govern- 
ment of the United States in favor of any of its debtors'. We 
approve of the refusal of the Fifty-third Congress to pass the 
Pacific Railroad Funding bill and denounce the effort of the 
present Republican Congress to enact a similar measure. 

Recognizing the just claims of deserving Union soldiers, 
we heartily indorse the rule of the present Commissioner of 
Pensions, that no names shall be arbitrarily dropped from the 
pension roll ; and the fact of enlistment and service should be 
deemed conclusive evidence against disease or disability 
before enlistment. 

We favor the admission of the Territories of New Mexico, 
Arizona and Oklahoma into the Union as States, and we 
favor the early admission of all the Territories, having the 
necessary population and resources to entitle them to State- 
hood, and, while they remain Territories, we hold that the 
officials appointed to administer the governinent of any Terri- 
tory, together Avith the District of Columbia and Alaska, 
should be bona fide residents of the Territory or District in 
which their duties are to be performed. The Democratic 
party believes in home rule and that all public lands of the 
United States should be appropriated to the establishment of 
free homes for American citizens. 

We recommend that the Territory of Alaska be granted a 
delegate in Congress and that the general land and timber 
laws of the United States be extended to said Territory. 

The Monroe doctrine, as originally declared, and as inter- 
preted by succeeding Presidents, is a permanent part of the 
foreign policy of the United States, and must at all times be 
maintained. 

We extend our sympathy to the people of Cuba in their 
heroic struggle for liberty and independence. 



196 Official Proceedings of the 

We are opposed to life tenure in the public service, except 
as provided in the Constitution. We favor appointments 
based upon merit, fixed terms of office, and such an administra- 
tion of the civil service la\vs as will aflFord equal opportunities 
to all citizens of ascertained fitness. 

We declare it to be the unwritten law of the Republic, 
established by custom and usage of 100 years and sanctioned 
by the examples of the greatest and wisest of those who 
founded and have maintained our Government that no man 
should be eligible for a third term of the Presidential office. 

The Federal Government should care for and improve the 
Mississippi river and other great waterways of the Republic, 
so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transpor- 
tation to tide water. Whenever any waterway of the Repub- 
lic is of sufficient importance to demand aid from the Gov- 
ernment such aid should be extended upon a definite plan of 
continuous w^ork until permanent improvement is secured. 

Confiding in the justice of our cause and the necessity of 
its success at the polls, we submit the foregoing declaration 
of principles and purposes to the considerate judgment of the 
American people. We invite the support of all citizens who 
approve them and who desire to have them made eflPective 
through legislation, for the relief of the people and the resto- 
ration of the country's prosperity. 

Senator Jones: At the request of the 'minority of the 
Committee I now present an amendment which is to be pro- 
posed by the minority, and also two amendments w^hich Avill 
be proposed by Governor Hill. All of these w^ill be read 
for the information of the Convention, after which, by agree- 
ment, there are to be two hours and forty minutes] debate, 
one hour and twenty minutes on each side. I hope the Con- 
vention will listen patiently to what is to be said. 

The amendment offered by the minority of the Commit- 
tee was read by the Reading Clerk as follows: 

To the Democratic National Convention : Sixteen dele- 
gates, constituting the minority of the Committee on Resolu- 
tions, find many declarations in the report of the majority to 
which they cannot give their assent. Some of these are 



Democratic National Convention. 197 

wholly unnecessary. Some are ill considered and ambigu- 
ously phrased, while others are extreme and revolutionar}' of 
the well recognized principles of the party. The minority 
content themselves with this general expression of their dis- 
sent, without going into a specific statement of these objec- 
tionable features of the report of the majority ; but upon the 
financial question, which engages at this time the chief share 
of public attention, the views of the majority differ so funda- 
mentally from what the minority regard as vital Democratic 
doctrine as to demand a distinct statement of what they hold 
to as the only just and true expression of Democratic faith 
upon this paramount issue, as follows, which is offered as a 
substitute for the financial plank in the majority report. 

We declare our belief that the experiment on the part of the 
United States alone of free silver coinage and a change of the 
existing standard of value independently of the action of other 
great nations would not only imperil our finances, but would 
retard or entirely prevent the establishment of international 
bimetallism, to which the efforts of the government should be 
steadily directed. It would place this country at once upon a 
silver basis, impair contracts, disturb business, diminish the 
purchasing power of the wages of labor and inflict irreparable 
evils upon our nation's commerce and industry. 

Until international co-operation among leading nations for 
the coinage of silver can be secured we favor the rigid main- 
tenance of the existing gold standard as essential to the pres- 
ervation of our national credit, the redemption of our public 
pledges and the keeping inviolate of our country's honor. We 
insist that all our paper and silver currency shall be kept ab- 
solutely at a parity with gold. The Democratic party is the 
party of hard money and is opposed to legal tender paper 
money as a part of our permanent financial system, and we 
therefore favor the gradual retirement and cancellation of all 
United States notes and treasury notes, under such legislative 
provisions as will prevent undue contraction. We demand 
that the national credit shall be resolutely maintained at all 
times and under all circumstances. 

The minority also feel that the report of the majority is 
defective in failing to make any recognition of the honesty, 
economy, courage and fidelity of the present Democratic ad- 



198 Official Proceedings of the 

ministration. And they therefore offer the following declara- 
tion as an amendment to the majority report. 

" We commend the honesty, economy, courage and fidelity 
of the present Democratic National Administration." 

( Signed) : David B. Hill, New York ; William F. Vilas, 
Wisconsin ; George Gray, Delaware; John Prentiss Poe, 
Maryland ; Irving W. Drew, New Hampshire ; C. Vey Hol- 
man, Maine ; P. J. Farrell, Vermont ; William R. Steele, 
South Dakota ; Allen McDermont, New Jersey ; Lynde 
Harrison, Connecticut; David S. Baker, Rhode Island; 
Thomas A. E. Weadock, Michigan; James E. O'Brien, 
Minnesota ; John E. Russell, Massachusetts ; Robert E. 
Wright, Pennsylvania; Charles D. Rogers, Alaska. 

The Chair : The Chair is informed that the gentleman 
from New York, Air. Hill, will offer the following amend- 
ments also : 

The Clerk read the amendments as follows: 

" But it should be carefully provided by law at the same 
time that any change in the monetary standard should not 
apply to existing contracts." 

" Our advocacy of the independent free coinage of silver 
being based on belief that such coinage will effect and maintain 
a parity between gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, we de- 
clare a pledge of our sincerity that if such free coinage shall 
fail to effect such parity wathin one 3^ear f rom its enactment by 
law, such coinage shall thereupon be suspended." 

The Chair : If the Convention will be in order the 
Chair will make an announcement. The Chair is informed 
that under the agreement Senator Tillman will proceed for 
fifty minutes ; after which the debate will proceed as announced 
by the Chairman of the Committee on Resolutions. 

I present to you the gentleman from South Carolina, Sena- 
tor Tillman. 

Mr. Tillman : Mr. Chairman, it will hardly be expected 
that in the brief space of fifty minutes I can do more than 
make passing allusion to even the most important planks in 
this platform. I never was good at running against time any- 



Democratic Nationat. Convextiox. 199 

how, and when conscious that at a certain time I may be 
called from the floor while my heart and brain are surging 
with thoughts and feelings I am always at a disadvantage as 
to what to say and w^hat to leave unsaid. 

I will begin by introducing myself to the representatives 
of the Democracy of the United States as I am, and not as the 
lying newspapers have taught you to think me. It is said that 
the truth never overtakes a lie, but I hope that when this vast 
assembly shall have dispersed to its home the many thousands 
of my fellow-citizens who are here will carry hence a different 
opinion of the pitchfork man from South Carolina to that 
\vhich they now hold. I conie to you from the vSouth — from 
the home of secession — from that State where the leaders of 
— (the balance of the sentence of the speaker was drowmed by 
hisses.) 

Mr. TiLLMAX (resuming) : There are only three things 
in the world that can hiss — a goose, a serpent, and a man. 
And the man who hisses the nam^e of South Carolina in th's 
audience, if he knew anything of the history of his country, 
must be reminded of the fact that in the darkest days of the 
Revolutionary War, when it seemed that the cause of liberty 
was hopeless,' the indomitable courage of the men of that State 
kept alive the fires of liberty and there were more battles 
fought upon the soil of that State than upon all the other thir- 
teen. Get your history and read it, then. I say I come here from 
South Carolina. I come at an opportune time. South Caro- 
lina in 1860 led the fight in the Democratic party which 
resulted in its disruption. That disruption of that party 
brought about the war. The war emancipated the black 
slaves. We are here now heading a fight to emancipate the 
white slaves. And if need be, with the conditions reversed, 
we are willing to see tne Democratic party disrupt again to 
accomplish that result. I do not know whether I can truly 
say I am a representative of the entire South or not. (Cries 
of "No, no; I should hope not." "No, never."') I have 
been in fourteen States since April, making the announcement 
of a new declaration of independence, that " 16 to 1 or bust " 
IS the slogan, and all of ihem have endorsed it. And I say 
\vhile there is the danger of the Democratic party surrender- 
ing its time-honored principle, a return to the faith of the 



200 Official Proceedings of the 

fathers is best ; and then there is no danger of it as an entity 
disappearing from our politics. That if those who hold the 
contrary opinion, in their purse-proud blindness, choose to 
imitate the old slaveholders and go out, we say let them go. 
The South since the war has been Democratic. Until a year 
ago, or rather until last election, it was solidly Democratic. 

When the ^var closed we were vassals, and the only party 
which offered us a helping hand or any sympathy was the 
Democracy. We had in necessity, therefore, been in subser- 
viency to that wing or that end of the Democratic party in 
the North which controlled the electoral vote, and therefore 
New York has been the one predominant factor and dictator 
in National politics. 

I see it is utterly useless for me to make a speech or attempt 
to make any speech here that can pretend to represent or to 
fill out the outline even of this struggle. I must hasten away 
from the logical and proper opening of the subject and present 
s'ome thoughts in vindication and justification of the existing 
attitude of our people. 

While we look back and thank the Democracy of New 
York and Connecticut and New Jersey for their assistance 
and co-operation in the past, for the protecting aegis which 
they have extended over us, we have realized long since that 
we were but mere hewers of wood and drawers of ^vater, tied 
in bondage, and all our substance being eaten out. 

In the last three or four or five years the \Vestern people 
have come to realize that the condition of the South and the 
condition of the West were identical. Hence we find to-day 
that the Democratic party of the West is here almost in solid 
phalanx appealing to the South, and the South has responded 
— to come to their help and remove this yoke. Some of my 
friends from the South and elsewhere have said that this is 
not a sectional issue. I say it is a sectional issue. (Long 
prolonged hissing.) 

The truth is mighty and will prevail. Facts can neither 
be sneered out of existence nor obliterated by hisses. I pre- 
sent you some figures from the United States census, which 
will prove that it is a sectional issue and nothing else. I will 
give it to you by the way of comparison. 

And first I want to put before you the fifteen Southern 



Democratic National Convention. 201 

States, if you may count Delaware and Maryland as Southern, 
as extending clear to the Mississippi river, and across it, and 
including Louisiana and Arkansas. They have 566,000 square 
miles. Now I Avant you to watch and see how much of this 
gets into the papers. It is not going to get there, and you 
\vatch and see if it gets there. These Southern States have 
566,000 square miles and a population in 1890 of 17,000,000. 
The one State of Pennsylvania has an area of 45,000 square 
miles and a population of 5,258,000. The Southern States 
are twelve times the area of Pennsylvania and have three and 
three-tenths times as much population. These Southern 
States increased in population 2,555,000 ; Pennsylvania 
increased 975,000 in the decade betw^een 1880 and 1890. 
The Southern States were assessed at $2,607,000,000, Penn- 
sylvania at $1,683,000,000. The Southern States had one 
and fifty-four one-hundredths times as much wealth and had 
increased twice in population. They should have gained in 
the ten years as compared with Pennsylvania as follows : 
Capital, 1.54, multiplied by the population, 3.3, multiplied by 
territory, 12.5, giving an advantage of 3^ times to 1. But 
instead of such, a record, ^vhat did happen? During the 
ten years from 1880 to 1890 the fifteen Southern States 
gained $909,000,000 and the vState of Pennsylvania gained 
$901,000,000. 

Of course you say this rule won't work. I will give you 
another comparison. Take the State of Massachusetts and 
compare it with the five States of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, 
Nebraska, Io^va and Missouri. Without going into details as 
to area and population and assessable values, which would tire 
you, I will simply jump to the ultimate result, and that is that 
during the decade these five Western States, the garden of the 
world, gained in w^ealth $572,000,000 while the 9,000 square 
miles of Massachusetts gained $569,000,000. 

Now take New York. Add to the five States I have men- 
tioned, the States of Kentucky and Tennessee and the States 
of Kansas and Nebraska, the richest agricultural portion of 
the globe, and compare it ^vith the one vState of New York. 
These nine States gained in wealth $1,094,000,000, while New 
York gained $1,123,000,000 or nearly $29,000,000 more than 
the whole nine. 



202 Official Proceedings of the 

Take the three States of Massachusetts, New York and 
Pennsylvania and compare them with the other twenty-five 
which I will not call, including the entire West this side of 
the Rocky Mountains and all the South. Did you get it 
honestly? Are you more industrious and economical? Ah! 
these figures cannot enter your brains until you read them ; 
but the fact remains that the Southern and Western people 
have been hewers of wood and drawers of water, and that 
their substance has been going to the East by reason of the 
financial system that the misgovernment of the Republican 
party has fastened on it. 

How much time have I, Mr. Chairman ? 

The Chair : The Convention must be in order. The 
gentleman has twenty minutes remaining. 

Mr. Tillman ( continuing) : Now, it is not worth while 
for me to say, so far as any purpose of stirring up sectional 
passions or breeding any discord between the sections, such a 
thought does not harbor in my breast. The South has no 
feeling of sectionalism ; the South wants to be — (at this point 
the speaker was interrupted by a local band of music which 
began to play at the southern end of the hall. The Sergeant - 
at-Arms having caused them to be removed, the Chair said : ) 

The Chair : The delegates will please resume their 
seats. Gentlemen must be seated and cease conversation. 
There is too much noise in front of the Chair and the Ser- 
geantat-Arms will preserve order. 

Mr. Tillman (continuing) : I deny utterly having one 
ill thought or angry passion in my bosom in contemplating 
the wrongs v/hich we have endured. But if you will listen 
to the truth, and will let it enter your brain, you are bound 
to acknowledge that as to most of these improvements and 
money in the Eastern and Southern States where all this 
wealth has gone, it has not gone for the benefit of the people, 
but the wealth is owned by a few thousand men. The peo- 
ple in that section — for I have been among them in New 
York ten days ago — have submerged the gold men, and I 
should think that 90 per cent, of the honest population are in 
sympathy to-day with this demand for the restoration of the 



De:mocratic National Coxventiox. 203 

currency of our fathers. The two political machines, Demo- 
cratic and Republican, of that section, have used their money 
to darken the minds of the people by not telling the truth to 
them through their papers ; and what they know of this ques- 
tion has just simply come by intuition and to them through 
such other sources of information as they could get privately. 
Look at this city here ; not a paper in it in favor of the money 
of the Constitution and of the people ; every one of them 
howling day by day and abusing the majority of their fellow 
citizens in this section, even, and further west, by calling 
them howling dervishes and silver lunatics. I am in receipt 
of letters daily from all classes of men in that part of the 
United States, and they say to me that if you people will 
come among us out in the Western country we will show you 
a ground-swell and under-current as ^vill wash away these 
people in November. I say that in so far as this feeling is sec- 
tional it is sectional as between the Eastern bosses and not 
bet^veen the people of the East, and the West, and the South. 
We have, instead of a slave oligarchy, a money oligarchy. 
The one is more insolent than the other was. The only thing 
which can keep the movement — this resolution — from suc- 
ceeding in sweeping this country from end to end, is that we 
may submerge our patriotism here, forget the duty w^hich we 
owe our people, follow after the banner of some individual 
rather than a principle, and fail to discharge that duty which 
we owe to the masses of selecting a man here whose record 
w^ill fit this platform. There is one peculiarity about the con- 
dition and the aspect of this struggle which is in some sense 
amusing. In 1892 I attended the National Convention in this 
city. Then, as no^v, my State was arrayed in this cause. 
We wxre side by side with New York then. New York's 
candidate \vas hissed, as I have been. Ne^v York's orator and 
sponsor, this distinguished gentleman here (Senator Hill) 
was howled down. The conditions are reversed. Where is 
New York now ^ Where is New York's leader ? The States 
which antagonized him then, to a man, when he was the log- 
ical and proper candidate of the Democracy, are here to-day 
behind him. It is not for me to criticise the motive of any 
man, nor to call in question the honesty of any man. I give 
and accord to every man here who opposes me on this prop- 



204 Official Proceedings of the 

osition the same liberty I claim for myself — that is, independ- 
ence of thought and independence of action, and credit for 
honesty of purpose. But when I have done that don't let 
them call in question ours ; don't let them, through their news- 
papers, sneer at, and abuse and lie about us as they are doing. 

(At this point the speaker was interrupted by a great 
uproar, hisses and calls for " Hill.") 

Senator Tillman said : " The audience might just as well 
understand that I am going to have my say if I stand here 
until sundown." 

After order was restored Mr. Tillman said: 

Mr. President, the Senator from New York, under the 
arrangement that has been made, is to follow me. I will have 
no reply. I tried yesterday to get him to go in front, but he 
would not do it. I do not say that he feared to go in front, 
because he fears no man. But, lest you think I am making a 
wanton assault on him — and I am not ; I am just simply point- 
ing out the anomalous condition into which we have gotten, 
the new allies with which he has allied himself — and to leave 
it to your judgment and to his explanation, if he can, what 
has produced the change. 

He despised the President of the United States in 1892. 
He has had cause since to more than despise him. But for 
some inscrutable reason, although he has been betrayed by hi& 
own party, in his own State, he appears here, and has appeared 
in the Senate as the sponsor and apologist for the administra- 
tion. This fight as to the administration is not of my seeking. 
The entire Committee, as represented by the silver men yes- 
terday, begged him not to precipitate the issue. He forced it 
on us. Why, he will tell you. I therefore merely meet what 
I know is coming, and give expression to the reason and expla- 
nation of why I shall offer a substitute. 

I am sure that, as I said in the beginning, this speech can" 
not have any connection hardly with the platform. But, as 
Grover Cleveland stands for gold monometallism, and we 
have repudiated it, then, when we are asked to indorse Grover 
Cleveland's administration, we are asked to write ourselves 
down as asses and liars. They want us to say that he is 



Democratic National Convextiox. 205 

honest, and they link with him all of his Cabinet in order to 
try to bolster him up. The only thing that I have ever seen 
that smacked of dishonesty in his career is that he signed a 
contract in secret, ^vith one of his partners as a witness, which 
gave ten millions of dollars of the American people's money to 
a syndicate, and appointed that syndicate receiver of the Gov- 
ernment for the same. They ask us to indorse his courage. 
Well, no^v, no one disputes the man's boldness and obstinacy, 
because he had the courage to ignore his oath of office and 
redeem in gold paper obligations of the Government, which 
were payable in coin — both gold and silver — and, furthermore, 
he had the courage to over-ride the Constitution of the United 
States and invaded the State of Illinois with the United States 
Army and undertook to over-ride the rights and liberties of his 
fellow-citizens. 

They ask us to indorse his fidelity. He has been faithful 
unto death, or rather unto the death of the Democratic party, 
so far as he represents it through the policy of the friends that 
he had in Ne^v York and ignored the entire balance of the 
Union. I came here in 1892 opposed to Clevelaxd. We had 
denounced him in South Carolina as a tool of Wall street. I 
appear here to-day, and what was prophecy then is history 
now. Mr. Hill appears here in the attitude, as I said, of his 
sponsor and apologist. I will only quote the \vords of Byron, 
^vhich are applicable to the situation and apropos of the con- 
dition. It is more in condemnation of this attitude than any 
attempt at self-laudation : 

For, fallen on evil days and evil tongues, 
Milton appeals to the Avenger, Time; 
For Time, the Avenger, execrates his wrongs 
And makes the word Miltonic mean sublime. 
He never deigned to coin his brain in song. 
Nor turned his very talent to a crime; 
He never loathed the sire to laud the son, 
And closed the tyrant-hater he begun. 

Now, one more illustration of the condition ot this coun- 
try and I will close. I desire to emphasize the proposition 
that a comiTiunity of interest betv^^een the different sections of 
this Union will give us a revolution this year and give us vic- 
tory. The Southern and Western producers, nov^ impover- 
ished by the financial system, cannot buy the products of the 



206 Official Proceedings of the 

Northern factories. The consequence is that those factories 
are idle. ■ The home market, which the Republican party has 
always clamored for and which it now seeks to re-establish, 
in practice, by the McKinley tariff, has been partly or wholly 
destroyed. We cannot hope to have the wheels of prosperity 
move forward again until the foundation — the agricultural 
interests, which furnish three-fourths of our exports — is set 
upon its feet again, and the farmers of the South and West 
are given an opportunity to make more than a bare living. 

With no money to spend we cannot patronize the local 
merchants ; the local merchant cannot order from the jobber, 
the jobber cannot order from the factory, and you see the 
sequence of consequence. The farmers of the Northeastern 
States are just as poor and just as hard up as we are. They 
are ready to join this army of emancipation. 

Now one word in reference to the claim of the Republican 
party that the Democratic party should be turned out because 
of its incompetency. I have here the utterance of a dis- 
tinguished Senator of the Republican party and a leader of 
that party ia its financial policy, delivered in the Senate of 
the United States about three months ago, and I will read it 
for you : 

" The President and the Secretary of the Treasury were 
perfectly justified in pursuing the course they have followed; 
they could not have done otherwise. Suppose they had re- 
fused payment of the notes of the United States in gold; the 
result would have been that our money would at once have 
fallen below par and a disturbance in foreign and domestic 
trade would have occurred. They did right. Though I hold 
far different opinions from them on many questions, yet I 
stand here and say boldly and openly that in managing our 
financial affairs during the present condition of things I think 
the Secretary of the Treasury and the President have done 
their full duty, and I could not say any more if there were a 
Republican President in ofiice." 

A Voice : "Who is that?" 

Mr. Tillman : John Sherman. That is a certificate of 
Cleveland Republicanism, so far as his policy goes. Sher- 
man, with his Republican gold-bugs, joined Cleveland and 



Democratic National Convention. 207 

his Southern silver traders and struck down silver, and he 
now asks the American people to reward them for the treach- 
ery of our President. Will the American people turn out or 
turn down the Democratic party Which has spurned and re- 
pudiated this man's policy? If you adopt anything squinting- 
at sympathy or an indorsement of him or his administration, 
you dare not go to the people of this country and ask them to 
support your ticket, no matter whom you nominate. Having 
been called on to ixidorse or repudiate, you dare not dodge the 
issue. You have got to meet it and meet it like men, how- 
ever distasteful it be, and however much their pleadings for 
harmony and unity in the Democracy may call on you not to 
do it. The Democracy are face to face with this issue, and it 
must be met. We of the South have burned our brido-es as 
far as the Northwestern Democracy is concerned, as now 
organized. 

We have turned our faces to the West, asking our breth- 
ren of those States to unite ^vith us in restoring the govern- 
ment to the liberty of our fathers, or w^hich our fathers left us. 
The West has responded by its representatives here. The 
West, however, is in doubt, while the South can deliver its 
electoral vote. But you must get the Republican silver men 
West, and the Populists in those States, to indorse your plat- 
form and your candidate, or you are beaten. 

If this Democratic ship goes to sea on storm-tossed waves 
without fumigating itself, without express repudiation of this 
man who has sought to destroy his party, then the Republican 
ship goes into port and you go down in disgrace, defeated, in 
November. That is the situation as I see it. I know an appeal 
will be made to you not to listen to the mouthings of this 
ranter from South Carolina. I know that the timeserving 
politician, the man who follows public opinion but never leads 
it, the man w^ho simply wants to be wath the procession, will 
hesitate and halt and falter before he passes on this bridge. 
We would not have laid the bridge down had w^e not been 
forced to the issue. We have denounced this sin in the plat- 
form without mentioning the sinner. We have repudiated 
everything that he has done, almost. Now. we are forced 
either to repudiate him and his administration, or, as I said 
before, we wnll go before the country stultified. 



20S Official Proceedings of the 

I therefor offer as a substitute, or an amendment to the 
amendment, the following resolution. Now, please keep quiet 
and listen to it, and if any man here — if any considerable num- 
ber of these delegates deny the truth they can express it by 
their votes, but those of you who know^ it is true are called 
on to face the responsibility of declaring so by your votes : 

"We denounce the administration of President Cleveland 
as undemocratic and tyranical — (This created great confusion 
throughout the hall ; when it had subsided he continued :) and 
as a departure from those principles which are cherished by all 
liberty-loving Americans. 

" The veto power has been used to thwart the will of the 
people, as expressed by their Representatives in Congress. 
The appointive power has been used to subsidize the press and 
debauch Congress, and to overawe and control citizens in the 
free exercise of their constitutional rights as voters. A plu- 
tocratic despotism is thus sought to be established on the 
ruins of the Republic. We repudiate the construction placed 
on the financial plank of the last National Democratic Con- 
vention b}^ President Cleveland and Secretary Carlisle as 
contrary to the plain meaning of English words, and as being 
an act of bad faith deserving the severest censure. 

" The issue of bonds in time of peace with which to buy 
gold to redeem coin obligations payable in silver or gold at 
the option of the government and the use af the proceeds 
towards defraying the ordinary expenses of the government 
are both unlawful, and usurpations of authority deserving of 
impeachment." (Great confusion, noise, hisses, cheers, etc.) 

Now, one more word, Mr. President, and I will relieve 
these howlers who have been brought in here on tickets given 
to them, many of them, of the disagreeable dut}' or obligation 
to listen to me. I say to you, fellow-Democrats, those of you 
who are Democrats, who have not gone off after false gods, 
who stand by the principles of Jefferson and Jackson, and I 
say to all other parties, all representatives of parties or mem- 
bers of parties in this audience, that if we do not unite the 
disjointed and contending or jealous elements in the ranks of 
the silver people of this country that we cannot win. 



Democratic National Coxventiox. 209 

Mr. Marstox^, of Louisiana : Mr. Chairman, I rise to a 
question of information. 

The Chair : Senator Till]\iax has the floor ; he must not 
be interrupted ; he declines to yield it and I cannot recognize 
the gentleman from Louisiana. 

Mr. TiLLMAX : For myself, and for those of my State 
who came \vith me, we came here primarily to see that we 
had a platform which meant what it said and said what it 
meant. We have got it. Now give us any man you- please 
who is a true representative of that platform — we have no 
choice — and we pledge you that e-^-ery vote South of the 
Potomac will go to him. 

Senator Jones, of Arkansas : Gentlemen, I will not occupy 
much of your time, but will give way to another. I did not 
intend to open my mouth as to this platform. I believe it 
means what it says and says what it means ; that it did not 
require one word of explanation. And I would not have 
littered one syllable but for the charge that has just been made 
here by the distinguished Senator who has just left the plat- 
form that this was a sectional question. I am a Southern 
man, was born in the South and carried a musket as a private 
soldier during the war. There is not one thing connected 
with the upbuilding and good of that section of the country 
for which I am not willing to lay down my life. But above 
the South and above section, I love the whole of this country. 

The great cause in which I and those who feel as I do are 
engaged in is not sectional. It is not confined to any part of 
this great country. It is not confined to any one country on 
the face of God's green earth. It is a great question, involv- 
ing all the interests of mankind, as we believe all over the 
world ; and when we find such men as this magnificent Demo- 
crat from ^Maine, Arthur Sewall, when we find such men 
as George Fred Williams, from Massachusetts, when we 
^hnd in every hamlet of this country men w^ho believe as we 
believe, in the name of God how can any man say the question 
is sectional? I, and those who believe as I do, believe in fra- 
ternity, in liberty, in union, and we believe that we ought to 

stand together as one great people. I simply rose to say that 
14 



210 Official Proceedings of the 

for myself, and, as I believe, for the most of those who agree 
with me, that I utterly repudiate the charge that this question 
is sectional. 

The Chair: The Chair recognizes Hon. David B. 
Hill, of New York. 

Senator Hill : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention: I do not know that it is necessary to pursue 
the course of the distinguished Senator from South Carolina and 
introduce myself. But if I were to follow him in that respect, 
I would say at the outset, I am a Democrat ; but I am not a 
revolutionist. South Carolina, with all its power, cannot 
drive me out of the Democratic party. Without intending to 
specially reply to the remarks of the distinguished Senator 
from South Carolina, I will only say that it was a waste of 
time on his part to assume that we were so ignorant as not to 
know that it was his State that attempted to break up the 
Democratic party in 1860. 

But that party has survived the attempts of every section 
of the country to permanently divide it — to distract it. It 
lives to-day, and I hope it will live forever. My mission 
here to-day is to unite, not to divide; to build up, not to 
destroy ; to plan for victory, not to plot for defeat. I know 
that I speak to a Convention which, as now constituted,, 
probably does not agree with the financial views of the State 
that I especially represent upon this occasion ; but I know 
that notwithstanding the attack which has been made upon 
that State, you will hear me for my cause. 

New York makes no apology to South Carolina for her 
Democracy. We get our Democracy from our fathers, and 
not from South Carolina. We do not need to learn it from 
those whom my friend represents. Need I defend New York 
and her people ? No, it is not necessary. That State defends 
herself. Need I defend the attack made upon her citizens 
— the charge of being men of wealth, of being men of intel- 
ligence and character ? No, it is not necessary. Need I 
remind this Democratic National Convention that it is in 
the great State of New York and in its great city where the 
wealth that he inveighs against is situated, and that it is that 
great city that never but once in its history that I recall, ever 



Democratic National Coxventiox. 211 

gave a Republican majority. While other cities through- 
out the country have failed to respond, New York has ever 
been the Gibraltar of Democracy. 

The question which this Convention is now^ to decide is 
which is the best position to take at this time upon the finan- 
cial question. In a word, the precise question presented is 
between international bimetallism and local bimetallism. If 
there be gold monometallists here they are not represented 
either in the majority report or in the minority report. I 
therefore start out with this proposition : That the Demo- 
cratic party stands to-day in favor of gold and silver as the 
money of the country. We stand in favor of the proposition 
of a double standard of gold and silver, but we differ as to 
the means to bring about that result. Those I represent and 
for whoin I speak — the sixteen members of the minority 
committee — insist that we should not attempt the experiment 
of free and unlimited coinage of silver without the co-opera- 
tion of other great nations. 

It is not a question of patriotism. It is not a question of 
courage. It is not a question of loyalty. It is not a question 
of valor. The majority platform speaks of the subject as 
though it wxre simply a question as to w^hether we were a 
brave enough people to enter upon this experiment. It is a 
question of business. It is a question of finance. It is a 
question of economics. It is not a question, which men, ever 
so brave, can solve, as a mere matter of bravery. 

Mr. President, I think the safest, the best course for this- 
Convention to have pursued, was to take the first step for- 
ward in the great cause of monetary reform by declaring in 
favor of international bimetallism. 

I am not here to assail the honesty or sincerity of a single 
man who disagrees with me. There are those around me wha 
know that in every utterance made upon this subject I have 
treated the friends of free and unlimited coinage of silver at 
the ratio of 16 to 1 with respect. I am here to pursue that 
course to-day. I do not think that we can safely ignore the 
monetary system of other great nations. I concede that it is a 
question about whjch honest men may differ. I believe we can- 
not ignore the attitude of other nations upon this subject any 
more than we can ignore their attitude upon other questions of 



212 Official Proceedings of the 

the day. I know it is said by enthusiastic friends that America 
can mark out a course for herself. I know that it appeals to the 
pride of the average American to say that it matters not what 
other countries may do, we can determine this matter for our 
selves. But I beg to remind you that if that suggestion is car- 
ried out to its legitimate conclusion you might as well do away 
with commercial treaties with other countries; you might as well 
do away with all the provisions in your tariff bills that have 
relation to the laws of other countries. In this great age, 
when we are connected with all portions of the earth by 
our ships, by our cables, and by all modern methods of inter- 
course, we of the minority think that it is unwise to attempt 
iilone a change of our money standard. 

Mr. President, I want to call your attention to another 
point. I think it is unwise further for this Convention to 
iliazard this contest upon a single ratio. What does this ma- 
jority platform provide? It should have contented itself with 
;the single statement that it was in favor of the remonetization 
of silver and the placing it upon equality with gold, but instead 
of that your Committee has recommended for adoption a 
platform which makes the test of Democratic loyalty to hang 
upon a single ratio, and that 16 to 1. I doubt the wisdom of 
ihaving entered into details. I doubt the prooriety of saying 
?that 15^ or 17 is heresy, and 16 is the only true Democratic 
doctrine. Permit me to remind you — I see distinguished 
Senators before me who, in the Senate of the United States, 
friends of free silver, who have introduced bills for the free 
and unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 20 to 1 — I beg to 
remind this Convention that some of your candidates proposed 
for nomination, men whom I respect and vs^hose Democracy 
I admit, have voted time and time again in Congress for 
other ratios than 16 to 1 ; and yet you are proposing to nomi- 
nate those men upon a platform that limits and restricts the 
adhesion to Democracy to one single ratio. With all due 
respect I think it an unwise step. I think it an unnecessary 
step ; and I think it will return to plague us in the future. I 
think we have too many close business relations with other 
great nations of the world for us to ignore their attitude. 
Your proposed platform says that the policy of gold monomet- 
allism is a British policy. Mr. President, they forget to tell 



Democratic National Convention. 213^ 

the people of this country that it is a French poHcy also ; 
they forget to tell the people of this country that it is a Ger- 
man policy also ; they fail to remind you that it is a Spanish 
policy also. They fail to tell you that it is the policy of the 
whole number of governments represented in what was called 
the Latin Union. Therefore, I think — I think — it looks a little 
— just a trifle like demagogism to suggest that this is the policy 
of the British nation alone. Mr. President, I regret also to 
see that the majority platform contains not a single word in 
favor of international bimetallism — not necessarily inconsistent 
with this platform — and there is no declaration whatever that 
it is the policy of this government to attempt to bring it about. 
The minority platform declares expressly that it is the policy 
of this government to make steady efforts to bring about 
international bimetallism. It would be safer to do it ; it 
would be wiser to do it. We would then run no risk upon 
the great question of the finances of this republic. I do not 
intend in the brief time alloted me to enter into any elaborate 
argument upon this question. 

I assume that this Convention desires, as the people of this 
country desire, that every silver dollar coined shall be the 
equal of every other dollar coined. I find no words in this 
platform in favor of the maintenance of the parity of the 
two metals. I find no suggestion of what is to be done in case 
the experiment fails. I find no suggestion of how you are to 
brace up this now depreciated currency. Everything is risked 
upon the mere fact that it shall be given free coinage at the 
mints. I beg to call your attention to this fact : That in my 
humble opinion the very financial policy condemned in this 
platform is the policy that has kept your greenback cur- 
rency and your silver dollars at a parity with gold during 
the past years. We think that times and conditions have 
changed. We think that you can not ignore the fact of 
the great production of silver in this country. We think 
you cannot safely ignore the fact, in the preparation of 
a financial system, that the cost of the production of silver has 
greatly fallen. 

Why, it is the very pregnant fact that confronts all the 
world in the solving of this question, of the immense discov- 
ery of silver everywhere. The great fact confronts the world 



214 Official Proceedings of the 

that the cost of silver production has been largely reduced. 
If the American people were brave, were courageous, if they 
had the spirit of 1776, as this platform says, could they, single 
and alone, make and maintain copper the equal of gold? 
Could they make lead the equal of gold? Must you not take 
into consideration the great fact of production, the great fact 
of the lessening of the cost of production in the last fifteen 
or twenty years? If bravery, if courage, could solve mone- 
tary problems, then you could make any metal, no matter what 
it might be, a money metal. 

But I tell you it is a question of economics, a question of 
business, a question of finance. It is a question of resources. 
And upon that point it is the judgment of the minority of 
the Committee that the safest course is to take the first great 
step in favor of international bimetallism, and stop there. I 
know it will be said that in some particulars this minority 
platform agrees with that of our Republican friends ; that 
may be ; it is not any better nor any worse for it. I call your 
attention to the fact that your plank upon pensions, that your 
plank upon the Monroe doctrine, that your plank upon Cuba, 
that your plank upon territories, that your plank upon Alaska, 
that your plank even upon the civil service, are exactly or 
substantially like the Republican planks. Therefore, I do 
not think that that criticism will detract from the value of the 
minority proposition. Mr. President, I said a few moments 
ago I thought the safest course for this Convention to have 
pursued was simply to have said that this government should 
through international agreement place and treat gold and sil- 
ver alike as the currency of the country, and stop there. I 
do not think, as I said and will repeat it, it is wise to hazard 
everything upon a single ratio. 

Let me go further. I object to various other provisions 
of this platform, and I think if the counsels of the wise, level, 
cool-headed men, far-sighted men, such as the distinguished 
senator from Arkansas who addressed you, had prevailed, that 
majority platform would have been different. 

What was the necessity for opening up the old and vexed 
question of greenback circulation? What was the necessity 
for jjutting in this platform an implied pledge that this Govern- 
ment might issue greenback currency and make it legal tender? 



Democratic National Committee. 215 

The Democratic party is opposed to legal tender paper money ; 
the Democratic party from its earliest history has been in favor 
of hard money. The Democratic party believes that the best 
way is to eliminate United States notes and treasury notes from 
our currency. They are a drag upon your money metals. You 
have to constantly keep supplied a fund for their redemption, 
unless you propose to repudiate them. Therefore, when my 
friend from South Carolina and my friend from Arkansas say 
that this platform "says what it means and means what it 
says,'" I would like to have some one who follows me tell what 
this platform means upon the subject of the issue of paper 
money hereafter. 

I am not violating, I thirk, the secrets of the Committee- 
room when I say that it was avo^ved that this Government 
might desire to pursue the course of issuing unlimited legal 
tender paper money, and this is an attempt at this late day to 
commit the Democratic party to the suicidal policy of the 
issuing of such paper money. You say you wanted a clear 
and distinct platform. You have not got it upon that ques-^ 
tion. This plank cannot be defended successfully. 

Another suggestion permit me to make. What was the 
necessity for putting into the platform other questions which 
have never been made the tests of Democratic loyalty before? 
Why revive the disputed question of the policy and constitu- 
tionality of an income tax. What! Has it come to this, 
that the followers of Samuel J. Tilden, who during all his 
life was the opponent of that iniquitous scheme which was 
used against him in his old age to annoy him and harass him 
and humiliate him — why, I say, should it be left to this Con- 
vention to make as a tenet of Democratic faith belief in the 
propriety and constitutionality of an income tax law ? 

Why was it wise to assail the Supreme court of your 
country? Will some one tell what that clause means in this 
platform? " If you meant what you said and said what you 
meant," will some one explain that provision? That provision, 
if it means anything, means that it is the duty of Congress to 
reconstruct the Supreme court of the country. It means, and 
such purpose was openly avowed, it means the adding of addi- 
tional rnembers to the court, or the turning out of office and 
reconstructing the whole court. I said I will not follow any 



216 Official Proceedings of the 

such revolutionary step as that. Whenever before in the his- 
tory of this country has devotion to an income tax been made 
the test of Democratic loyalty? Never! Have you not under- 
taken enough, my good friends, now without seeking to put in 
this platform these unnecessary, foolish and ridiculous things? 

What further have you done ? In this platform you have 
declared, for the first time in the history of this country, that 
you are opposed to any life tenure whatever for office. Our 
fathers before us, our Democratic fathers, whom we revere, in 
the establishment of this government gave our Federal judges 
a life tenure of office. What necessity was there for reviving 
this question ? How foolish and how^ unnecessary, in my 
opinion. Democrats, whose whole lives have been devoted 
to the service of the party, men whose hopes, whose ambitions, 
whose aspirations, all lie within party lines, are to be driven 
out of the party upon this new question of life tenure for the 
great judges of our Federal courts. No, no ; this is a revolu- 
tionary step, this is an unwise step, this is an unprecedented 
'step in our party history. 

Another question that I think should have been avoided, 
and that is this : What was the necessity, what was the pro- 
priety of taking up the vexed question of the issue of bonds 
for the preservation of the credit of the nation ? Why not 
have left this financial question of the free coinage of silver 
alone ? What have you declared ? You have announced the 
broad policy that under no circumstances shall there ever be a 
single bond issued in times of peace. You have not excepted 
anything. What does this mean ? It means the virtual 
repeal of your resumption act ; it means repudiation per se 
and simple. 

The statement is too broad, the statement is too sweeping; 
it has not been carefully considered. You even oppose Con- 
gress issuing bonds ; you even oppose the President doing it ; 
you oppose them doing it either singly or unitedly ; you stand 
upon the broad proposition that for no purpose, whether to 
redeem the currency or not, whether to preserve your national 
credit or for any other purpose— shall there be a bond issued. 
Why, how surprising that will be to my Democratic asso- 
ciates in the Senate who for the last two or three years have 



Democratic National Convention. 217 

introduced bill after bill for the issuing of bonds for the 
Nicaragua Canal and other purposes. 

No, no, my friends, this platform has not been wisely con- 
sidered. In your zeal for monetary reform you have gone 
out of the true path ; you have turned from the true course, 
and in your anxiety to promote and aid the silver currency you 
have unnecessarily put in this platform provisions which cannot 
stand a fair discussion. Let me tell you, my friends, without 
going into a discussion of the bond question proper, ^vhich is 
somewhat foreign to this subject — let me tell you what would 
be the condition of this country to-day if the President of the 
United States, in the discharge of the public duty that is im- 
posed upon him, had not seen fit to issue bonds to protect the 
credit of the government. The Democratic party has passed a 
tariff bill, which, unfortunately, has not produced a sufficient 
revenue as yet to meet the necessities of the government. 
There has been a deficit of between twenty-five and fifty mill- 
ions a year. It is hoped that in the near future this bill will 
produce ample revenues for the support of the government, but 
in the meantime your greenback currency and your treasury 
notes must be redeemed when they are presented, if you would 
preserve the honor and the credit of the nation. Where would 
the money have come from if your President and your southern 
Secretary of the Treasury had not discharged their duty by 
the issuing of bonds to save the credit of the country ? 

Let me call your attention to the figures. There has been 
issued during this administration $262,000,000 of bonds. 
What amount of money have you in the treasury to-day .^^ 
Only just about that sum. Where would you have obtained 
the means with which to redeem your paper money if it had 
not been procured by the sale of bonds? Why, my friend 
Tillman would not have had money enough out of the treas- 
ury for his salary to pay his expenses home. 

Mr. President, I reiterate that this bond question has 
brought into this Convention an unnecessary, a foolish issue, 
w^hich puts us on the defense in every school district in the 
country. 

I do not propose to detain you by any other criticism of 
this platform at this time. It is unfortunate enough that 3^ou 
have entered upon a financial issue upon which the Democ- 



:218 Official Proceedings of the 

racy is largely divided. In addition to that, you have unwisely 
brought into this platform other questions foreign to the main 
■question, and made the support of them the test of Democracy. 
I do not think that this was the course that should have 
been pursued. Mr. President, there is time enough yet to 
retrace these false steps. The burdens you have imposed upon 
us in the Eastern States in the support of this platform relat- 
ing to silver are all that can be reasonably borne. But in 
addition to that, you have put upon us the question of the 
preservation of the public credit. You have brought into it 
the question of the reconstruction of the Supreme Court. 
You have brought into it the question of the issuing of bonds. 
Y^ou have brought into it the question of the issuing of paper 
money. You have brought into it the great question of life 
tenure in office. And this platform is full of incongruous and 
absurd provisions which are proposed to be made the test of 
true Democracy. 

Mr. President, it is not for me to revive any question of 
sectionalism, and I shall not do it. This country is now at 
peace in all sections of it, and let it so remain. I care not 
from what section of the country a Democrat comes, so long 
as he is true to the fundamental principles of our fathers. I 
will take him by the hand and express my friendly sentiments 
toward him. The question of sectionalism under this plat- 
form will creep in in spite of the efforts of our best men to 
keep it out. I oppose this platform because I think it makes our 
success more difficult. I want the grand old party with which 
I have been associated from my boyhood, to win. I have 
looked forward to the day when it should be securely en- 
trenched in the affections of the American people. I dislike 
the Republican party. I dislike all their tenets. I have no 
sympathy with their general principles ; but I do think that 
we ourselves are here to-day making a mistake in the venture 
which w^e are about to take. Be not deceived. Do not attempt 
to drive old Democrats out of the party, who have grow^n gray 
in its service, to make room for a lot of Republicans and 
Populists and political nondescripts who will not vote your 
ticket at the polls. 

Do not attempt to trade off the vote of New Jerse}^ that 
never failed to give us its electoral vote, and take the exper- 



Democratic National Convention. 219 

iment of some State out West that has always given its vote 
to the Republican ticket. I tell you that no matter who your 
candidate may be in this Convention, with possibly one excep- 
tion, your Populist friends, upon whom you are relying for 
support in the \Yest and South, will nominate their own 
ticket, in whole or in part, and your silver forces will be 
divided. Mark the prediction which I make. (A voice, " No, 
no! ") 

Someone says " No ! " Who are authorized to speak for 
the Populist party in a Democratic Convention ? I saw upon 
this platform the other day an array of Populists — former 
Republicans — giving countenance and support to this move- 
ment, men who never voted a Democratic ticket in their lives, 
and never expect to. They have organized this Populist 
party. They are the men who attempted to proscribe Demo- 
crats all over this Union. They are the men who were crying 
against us in the days that tried men's souls — during the war. 

My friends, I thus speak more in sorrow than in anger. 
You kno^v ^vhat this platform means to the East ; you know 
that we who are identified with the fortunes of the party there 
must suffer the result. But, calamitous as it may be to us, it 
will be more calamitous to you if, after all, taking these risks, 
you do not win this fight. My friends, we want the Democratic 
party to succeed. We ^vant to build it up. We do not ^vant 
to tear it down. We want our principles — the good old 
principles of Jefferson, of Jackson, of Tilden, of hard 
money, of safe money. We want no greenback currency on 
our plates. We want no legal tender paper currency Avhat- 
ever. We ^vant to stand by the principles under which \ve 
bave ^von during the history of the country, and made it what 
it is. If we keep in the good old paths of the party, we can 
win. If we depart from them we shall lose the great contest 
Avhich a^vaits us. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to make a statement to 
the Convention. Under the arrangement which has been made 
for debate, the Chair was informed that there was to be one 
hour and tv^enty minutes of debate. The Senator from South 
Carolina has used fifty minutes. The Senator from New York 
has used forty-nine minutes. That leaves thirty-one minutes 



220 Official Proceedings of the 

remaining for the minority. The Chair now presents to the 
Convention Hon. William F. Vilas, of the State of 
Wisconsin. 

Senator Vilas : Mr. Chairman and Fellow Democrats of 
this National Convention : A majority of the Committee on 
resolutions has graciously accorded to the minority the privi- 
lege of presenting their views to the Convention. They have 
conceded nothing more. Upon the subject of overshadowing 
present importance they propose to lead this body to a decla- 
ration which the minority believe abhorrent to Democratic 
faith, denounced as folly by all history, and to menace dire 
calamity to this country. 

We shall present, summarily, of course, the reasons which 
we entertain, or some of them. We present them, however^ 
recognizing that they now constitute only the earnest and sol- 
emn protest of a minority against the purposed revolution in 
party faith and conduct and threatened injury to our country. 
For myself, my .opinions are the result of long and sincere 
study. I cannot alter them for majorities nor personal conse- 
quence ; but as a Democrat who has always maintained a rea- 
sonable obedience to be the first duty to accomplish the party's 
mission, I ask a hearing for the party's sake, which from 
youth I have devotedly believed necessary for our country and 
our liberty. I speak for a State which has maintained the 
Democratic faith under circumstances of trial and with con- 
stant fidelity. The question which you are about to decide is 
momentous ; painfully so. Its right decision demands intelli- 
gence and reasoning. Oratory will reverse no law of nature, 
and theory ^vill range itself in vain against principles of 
finance. This Convention has power over neither ; but will 
be powerful for good as it shall respect that higher law which 
it cannot alter, though it may disobey and encounter. The 
minority believe the proposal of the majority to be disobedient 
to that law, recklessly and flagrantly so, and sure of a fearful 
penalty. I will not protract the argument. The Senator from 
New York — our illustrious and able friend — has already stated 
the argument. I will summarize the conclusion. This indi- 
rect proposal, its iniquities hidden to some, perhaps, its source 
of injury to the country lies in the proposed change in the 



Democratic National Convention. 221 

standard of values, if that proposition is carried out. It will 
not produce bimetallism ; far from it. It is in diametric oppo- 
sition to the platform of 1892, which proposed an honest bi- 
metallism, if the thing be possible at all, when conditions shall 
make it possible. And the superlative iniquity of this scheme 
will be to the honest bimetallist who lends his aid to it in the 
belief that he will thereby secure bimetallism. Hence will it 
deceive those who expect an abundance of money from it. It 
will shrink and not swell our currency. The silver dollar is 
no new thing to the United States. This scheme- of silver 
monometallism is no new thing to this country, however novel 
to the ignorance, perhaps, of some of this generation. The 
silver standard had its day of unlimited rule in the United 
States, beginning with our early poverty and weakness and 
abiding until 1834; then money was scant in this country. It 
possessed no gold ; it was to get gold and with it abundance 
so far as a sound currency can give it, that the act of 1834 w^as 
passed. That was a Democratic measure. That was a meas- 
ure created under Democratic leadership by Benton, with the 
favor of Andrew Jackson. 

That was distinctly accused then as a gold measure and it 
raised the standard of gold in this country ; but it raised this 
country from the grade of China and Japan and Mexico to a 
place among the foremost nations that maintain and rule the 
world's commerce and carry the colors of civilization to the 
farthest regions of the globe. 

The gold standard is now accused of responsibility for fall- 
ing prices ; but it is never credited when prices rise. In truth, 
it is entitled neither to the credit nor to the fault. The argu- 
ment is a false deduction. Would you stop the fall of prices, 
suppress invention, extinguish enterprise, discard improve- 
ments in transportation — in short, smite with paralysis the 
forces of civilization ! Take from the farmer the harvester 
and the threshing machine and wheat will rise ; snatch away 
from the planter the cotton gin, and the press, and cotton will 
rise. Burn your mills and woolen goods will rise. Let loose 
on society the fiends of destruction and they will soon deliver 
you from this supposed curse of civilization, — a cheap abun- 
dance. But the gold standard has nothing to do with it. 
When any standard be fixed with continuing stability, it has 



222 Official Proceedings of the 

no more to do with prices than a yard stick or a pair of scales. 
The one test which must infallibly prove the fact, and prove 
the excellence of this standard shows that gold has fallen, not 
risen, in value; and that test ought above all others to receive 
favor in a Democratic Convention, the wages of labor. Dur- 
ing^ this generation now just passed the average wage of labor 
throughout the United States skilled and unskilled has increased 
three-fifths — 66 per cent. But in the same time the power of 
a day's wages has more than doubled by reason of lower prices 
for what the labor has to buy. Will you insult the intelligent 
w^age-earners of the United States by proffering to them the 
state and condition of a Mexican, Portuguese, a Chinese or 
Japanese laborer in place of the American workmen of this 
country? And, Mr. Chairman, how will you justify the effect 
of the sudden transition upon the value of contracts? Are we 
to be told that contracts may be reduced one-half? Why will 
you not adopt this amendment proposed by the Convention, 
which shall limit the effect of a change of standard to future 
contracts? Thus will you deliver your platform from the 
imputation of a purpose to plunder. 

If you shall not, then do not be accepting the McKinley- 
ism that the foreigner will pay the tax. Our foreign debt is 
stipulated in gold. For every debtor profited you will have a 
creditor injured, and one of your own fellow citizens. Is that 
right? 

I desire to read a word or two from a distinguished legal 
writer who, since he referred to the record of others, will not 
complain if I use his great authority to satisfy this Conven- 
tion of what right and justice is. I refer to the w^ork of the 
distinguished and illustrious Temporary Chairman of this 
Convention. This is what he said, speaking on this question 
in this aspect, in his law book on negotiable notes, as it is 
quoted in a newspaper slip I have at hand : 

"But," said he, " in construing a bill or note it is to be 
interpreted according to the meaning of the words used at the 
time and the place where the instrument was drawn or made; 
and accordingly if the coin which is expressly agreed to be 
paid be alloyed by the Government between the time of con- 
tract and the time of payment, the debtor should be required 
to make good the full value of the coin at the time of the con- 



Democratic National Convention. 22S 

tract. And so, if the name of the coin be changed so as to 
apply to a lesser value, the amount to be paid should be esti- 
mated according to the value at the time of drawing the 
instrument, if payment in that coin then of higher value ^vas 
contemplated. On this subject the authorities exhibit great 
contrariety of opinion. We have simply stated the conclu- 
sions which seem to us just and right," 

What pretext in the face of such simple propositions can 
any man find to his conscience \vho shall refuse such a measure 
as an amendment to this ? Who loves the name of Demo- 
crat must welcome it; who believes silver will rise cannot 
refuse it. Standing upon that simple doctrine and driven by 
lapse of time to a rapid conclusion, I say that I protest against 
the assumption that this is a nation of dishonest debtors. I 
deny that Democratic doctrine can be based on iniquity. When 
and where, fellow Democrats, did robbery by law come to be 
Democratic doctrine. Can we believe that the American peo- 
ple will give their final judgment to so unjust, so reckless a 
course of action.' In the language of Lincoln, " you may 
fool all of the people some of the time ; you may fool some of the 
people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all 
of the time." Sound and sober sense will in the end prevail. 
Will not thinking men soon see that if you can by force of law 
make sixteen ounces of silver equal to one of gold, though 
thirty to thirty-two be the market rating, you can just as well 
declare the two metals equal, ounce for ounce .^ 

If you can lawfully take one-half of the debt, ^vhy cannot 
you take the whole? What distinguishes the confiscation of 
one-half the credits of the nation for the benefit of debtors 
from a universal distribution of property, except a difference 
in degree? What in short is this radical scheme but the begin- 
ning of the overthrow of all law, of all justice, of all security 
and repose in the social order? I solemnly believe you fear- 
fully misjudge the people of America. In the vastness of this 
country there maybe some Murat unknown, some Danton 
or Robespierre, but we have not the people w^ho will toler- 
ate an approach to the first step towards the atrocities of the 
French revolution. 

I will even venture a special prediction : Should this 
Centaur ever receive a temporary majority it will be quickly 



224 Official Proceedings of the 

turned to flight by universal distress ; but should it ever have 
a seeming success and become a real menace, such -wide spread 
disaster will befall as will teach what reason seems to fail to 
show. When that day of calamity comes let it be remembered 
who were not its authors. Oh, fellow Democrats, why must you 
launch our old party on this wild career? What inspiration 
warrants our pursuit of that which the wisdom of mankind 
condemns.'' Who teaches us, with authority, a lesson in finance 
w^iich the world of the highest civilization stands aghast at? 
Is it possible that this old party of Jefferson, this old Demo- 
cratic party of constitutional law and liberty, shall thus fall to 
the machinations of a propaganda in the interest of protection 
maintained by silver mine owners for their benefit which had 
its origin many years ago ? 

It was not for such uses, it was not for such an end that 
the Democratic party was created. I protest with solemn 
■earnestness, with sincerity and personal kindness, that the 
Democrats of the North ought not to have expected this re- 
sult. For thirty years they have stood at great personal cost, 
fighting devotedly for the principles of Democracy, until in a 
restored Union, with equal rights shared by every part and 
every portion of the people, they have seen the triumph ap- 
parently of Democracy. And no^v, in the hour ^vhen we 
thought everything before us was well, are we to have this 
newly-given strength exerted to pull down, the pillars of the 
temple and crush us all beneath the ruins? So I hope for a 
better future for the Democratic party. The evil times, the 
evil days, though filled with darkness and with dangers and 
compassed around with clouds, may pass. I hope to live to 
see a Democratic Convention assembled here when all shall 
be united and the whole party restored to the vigor and power 
w^hich is necessary for its service to the Constitution. 

The Chair : The Chair presents to the Convention Gov- 
ernor William E. Russell, of Massachusetts. 

Hon. William E. Russell : Mr. Chairman and Members 
■of this Convention : I have but one word to say. The time 
is past for debate upon the merits of this issue. I am con- 
scious, painfully conscious, that the mind of this Convention 
is not and has not been open to argument and reason. I know 



Democratic National Convention. 225 

that the will of its great majority, which has seen fit to over- 
ride precedent, to trample down rights, to attack the sover- 
eignty of States, is to be rigidly enforced. 

I know that an appeal, even, will fall upon deaf ears. 
There is but one thing left to us, and that is the voice of pro- 
test ; and that voice, not in anger, not in bitterness, not ques- 
tioning the sincerity, the honesty, of any Democrat — that voice 
I utter with a feeling of infinite sorrow. And, mark my 
words, my friends, the country, our country, if not this Con- 
vention, w^ill listen to our protest. I speak for one. of the 
smallest States of this Union ; not great in territory or popu- 
lation ; not prominent in her material resources ; but glorious 
in her history; great in her character, in her loyalty to truth, 
in her devotion to principle and duty, and in the sacrifices she 
has willingly made for independence, liberty and our country. 
That mother State has taught us, her children,"to place. prin- 
ciple above expediency ; courage above time-serving, and 
patriotism above party. And in the cause of justice and of 
right not to flinch, no matter how great the majority or how 
overbearing may be its demands. 

I speak, and. I have a right to speak, for the Democracy 
of my commonwealth. I have seen it for a generation in 
darkness and defeat following steadfastlv the old principles 
of an abiding faith. I have followed it when it was rejected 
and proscribed. It mattered not to us. We knew that its 
principles would triumph and we lived to see the day w^hen 
we planted the banner of Democracy for three successive 
years victorious in that stronghold of Republicanism and pro- 
tection. These victories were for the great principles of a 
national party. They were the assertions of Massachusetts, 
of the rights of the States, her protest against sectionalism, and 
against paternal government, which, either by force or by 
favor, should seek to dominate a dependent people. This was 
then the Democracy of South Carolina and of Illinois and bound 
us together from ocean to ocean. We did not think that we 
should live to see the time when these great Democratic prin- 
ciples which have triumphed over Republicanism should be 
forgotten in a Democratic Convention, and we should be 
invited under new and radical leadership to a new and a rad- 
ical policy ; that we should be asked to give up vital prin- 
15 



22G Official Proceedings of the 

ciples for which we have labored and suffered, repudiate 
Democratic platforms and administrations, and at the demands 
of a section urging expediency be asked to adopt a policy 
which many of us believe invites peril to our country and dis> 
aster to our party. 

In the debates of this Convention I have heard one false 
note from the commonwealth of Massachusetts. I answer it, 
not in anger, but in sorrow, and I appeal to you, my asso- 
ciates of the Massachusetts delegation, do I not speak the true 
sentiment of my State, and of our party, when I declare that 
they and we utter our earnest, emphatic and unflinching pro- 
test against this Democratic platform. 

I have heard from the lips of some of the old leaders of our 
party, at whose feet we younger men have loved to learn the 
principles of our faith, that this new doctrine was the bright 
dawn of a better day. I would to God that I could believe it. 
I have heard that Democracy was being tied to a star — not 
the lone star, my Texas friends, that we gladly w^ould wel- 
come — but to the falling star, which flashes for an instant and 
then goes out in the darkness of the night. No, myfreinds, 
we see not the dawn, but the darkness of defeat and disaster. 
Oh, that from this great majority, with its power, there might 
come the one word of concession and conciliation. Oh, that 
from you there might be held out the olive branch of peace,, 
under which all Democrats united would rally to a great vic- 
tory. Mr. Chairman, I have finished my word of protest. Let 
me, following the example of the Senator from South Car- 
olina, utter my word of prophecy. When this storm has 
subsided, when the dark clouds of passion and prejudice have 
rolled away, and there comes after the turmoil of this Conven- 
tion the sober, second thought of Democrats and of our people,^ 
then the protests we of the minority here make, will be hailed 
as the ark of the covenant of the faith where all Democrats, 
reunited, may go forth to fight for old principles and carry 
them to triumphant victory. 

The Chair : The Chair will present to this Convention 
Hon. William J. Bryan, of Nebraska. 

Mr. Bryan : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : I would be presumptuous, indeed, to present myself 



Democratic National Convention. 22T 

against the distinguished gentlemen to whom jou liave 
listened if this were but a measuring of ability ; but this is not 
a contest among persons. The humblest citizen in all the 
land, when clad in armor of a righteous cause, is stronger than 
all the whole hosts of error that they can bring. I come to 
speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of lib- 
erty — the cause of humanity. When this debate is concluded 
a motion will be made to lay upon the table the resolution 
offered in commendation of the administration and also the 
resolution in condemnation of the Administration. I shall 
object to bringing this question down to a level of persons. 
The individual is but an atom ; he is born, he acts, he dies 
but principles are eternal ; and this has been a contest of 
principle. 

Never before in the history of this country has there been 
witnessed such a contest as that through ^vhich we have 
passed. Never before in the history of American politics has 
a great issue been fought out, as this issue has been, by the 
voters themselves. 

On the 4th of March, 1895, a few Democrats, most of them 
members of Congress, issued an address to the Democrats of 
the nation asserting that the money question was the para- 
mount issue of the hour ; asserting also the right of a majority 
of the Democratic party to control the position of the party on 
this paramount issue; concluding with the request that all 
believers in free coinage of silver in the Democratic party 
should organize and take charge of and control the policy of 
the Democratic party. Three months later, at Memphis, an 
organization was perfected, and the silver Democrats went 
forth openly and boldly and courageously proclaiming their 
belief and declaring that if successful they would crystallize in 
a platform the declaration what they had made ; and then 
began the conflict with a zeal approaching the zeal which 
inspired the crusaders who followed Peter the Hermit. Our 
silver Democrats went forth from victory unto victory until 
they are assembled now, not to discuss, not to debate, but to 
enter up the judgment rendered by the plain people of this 
country. 

But in this contest, brother has been arrayed against 
brother, and father against son. The warmest ties of love: 



228 Official Proceedings of th 



E 



and acquaintance and association have been disregarded. Old 
leaders have been cast aside when they refused to give 
expression to the sentiments of those whom they would lead, 
and new leaders have sprung up to give direction to this 
cause of freedom. Thus has the contest been waged, and we 
have assembled here under as binding and solemn instructions 
as were ever fastened upon the representatives of a people. 

We do not come as individuals. Why, as individuals we 
might have been glad to compliment the gentleman from New 
York (Senator Hill), but we knew that the people for whom 
we speak would never be willing to put him in a position 
-where he could thwart the will of the Democratic party. I 
«ay it was not a question of persons ; it was a question of prin- 
ciple, and it is not with gladness, my friends, that we find 
'Ourselves brought into conflict with those who are now 
arrayed on the other side. The gentleman who just preceded 
:me (Governor Russell) spoke of the old State of Massachu- 
setts. Let me assure him that not one person in all this Con- 
tention entertains the least hostility to the people of the State 
of Massachusetts. 

But we stand here representing people who are the equals 
before the law of the largest cities in the State of Massachu- 
setts. When you come before us and tell us that we shall dis- 
turb your business interests, we reply that you have disturbed 
our business interests by your action. We say to you that you 
liave made too limited in its application the definition of a 
business man. The man who is employed for wages is as 
much a business man as his employer. The attorney in a 
country town is as much a business man as the corporation 
counsel in a great metropolis. The merchant at the cross- 
roads store is as much a business man as the merchant of New 
York. The farmer who eoes forth in the morning and toils 
all day, begins in the spring and toils all summer, and by the 
application of brain and muscle to the natural resources of this 
country creates wealth, is as much a business man as the man 
who goes upon the Board of Trade and bets upon the price of 
grain. The miners who go a thousand feet into the earth or 
climb 2,000 feet upon the cliffs and bring forth from their 
hiding places the precious metals to be poured, in the channels 



Democratic National Convention. 229 

of trade are as much business men as the few financial mag- 
nates who in a back room corner the money of the world. 

We come to speak for this broader class of business men. 
Ah, my friends, we say not one word against those who live 
upon the Atlantic coast ; but those hardy pioneers who braved 
all the dangers of the wilderness, who have made the desert 
to blossom as the rose — those pioneers away out there, rear- 
ing their children near to nature's heart, where they can 
mingle their voices with the voices of the birds — out there 
where they have erected school houses for the education of 
their children and churches where they praise their Creator, 
and the cemeteries where sleep the ashes of their dead — are 
as deserving of the consideration of this party as any people 
in this country. 

It is for these that we speak. We do not come as aggres- 
sors. Our war is not a ^var of conquest. We are fighting in 
the defense of our hoines, our families and posterity. We 
have petitioned, and our petitions have been scorned. We 
have entreated and our entreaties have been disregarded. 
We have begged, and they have mocked when our calamity 
came. 

We beg no longer ; we entreat no more ; we petition no 
more. We defy them ! 

The gentleman from Wisconsin has said he fears a Robe- 
spierre. My friend, in this land of the free you need fear no 
tyrant who will spring up from arnong the people. What 
w^e need is an Andrew Jackson to stand as Jackson stood, 
against the encroachments of aggregated wealth. 

They tell us that this platform was made to catch votes. 
We reply to them that changing conditions make new issues ; 
that the principles upon which rest Democracy are as everlast- 
ing as the hills ; but that they must be applied to new condi- 
tions as they arise. Conditions have arisen and we are 
attempting to meet those conditions. They tell us that the 
income tax ought not to be brought in here ; that is not a 
new idea. They criticise us for our criticism of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. My friends, we hav^e made no 
criticism. We have simply called attention to what you 
know. If you want criticisms read the dissenting opinions of 
the Court. That will give you criticisms. 



'2B0 Official Proceedings of the 

They say we passed an unconstitutional law. I deny it. 
The income tax was not unconstitutional when it was passed. 
It was not unconstitutional when it went before the Supreme 
Court for the first time. It did not become unconstitutional 
until one judge changed his mind ; and we cannot be expected 
to know when a judge will change his mind. 

The income tax is a just law. It simply intends to put 
the burdens of government justly upon the backs of the peo- 
ple. I am in favor of an income tax. When I find a man 
w^ho is not willing to pay his share of the burden of the gov- 
•ernment \vhich protects him I find a man who is unworthy 
to enjoy the blessings of a government like ours. 

He says that we are opposing the national bank^ currency. 
It is true. If you will read what Thomas Benton said you 
will find that he said that in searching history he could find 
but one parallel to Andrew Jackson. That was Cicero, who 
destroyed the conspiracies of Cataline and saved Rome. He 
did for Rome what Jackson did when he destroyed the bank 
conspiracy and saved America. 

We say in our platform that we believe that the right to 
■coin money and issue money is a function of government. .We 
believe it. We believe it is a part of sovereignty, and can no 
more with safety be delegated to private individuals than can 
the power to make penal statutes or levy laws for taxation. 

Mr. Jefferson, who was once regarded as good Democratic 
authority, seems to have a different opinion from the gentle- 
man who has addressed us on the part of the minority. Those 
w^ho are opposed to this proposition tell us that the issue of 
paper money is a function of the bank, and that the Govern- 
ment ought to go out of the banking business. I stand with 
Jefferson, rather than with them, and tell them, as he did, 
that. the issue of money is a function of the Government, and 
that the banks should go out of the governing business. 

They complain about the plank vv^hich declares against the 
life tenure in office. They have tried to strain it to mean that 
which it does not mean. What we oppose in that plank is 
the life tenure that is being built up in Washington which 
establishes an office-holding class and excludes from partici- 
pation in the benefits the humbler members of our society. 
I cannot dwell longer in my limited time upon these things. 



Democratic National Convention. 231 

Let me call attention to two or three great thino^s. The 
gentleman from New York says that he will propose an 
amendment providing that this change in our law shall not 
affect contracts which, according to the present laws, are 
made payable in gold. But if he means to say that we cannot 
change our monetary system without protecting those who 
have loaned, money before the change was made, I want to 
ask him where, in law or in morals, he can find authority for 
not protecting the debtors when the act of 1873 was passed, 
when he now insists that we must protect the creditor. He 
says he also wants to amend this platform so as to provide that 
if we fail to maintain the parity within a year that we will 
then suspend the coinage of silver. We reply that when we 
advocate a thing which we believe will be successful we are not 
compelled to raise a doubt as to our own sincerity by trying to 
show what we will do if we are wrong. I ask him, if he will 
apply his logic to us, why he does not apply it to himself. 
He says that he wants this country to try to secure an inter- 
national agreement. Why doesn't he tell us what he is going 
to do if they fail to secure an international agreement. 

There is more reason for him to do that than for us to ex- 
pect to fail to maintain the parity. They have tried for thirty 
years — thirty years — to secure an international agreement, and 
those are waiting for it most patiently who don't want it 
at all. 

Now, my friends, let me come to the great paramount issue. 
If they ask us here why it is we say more on the money ques- 
tion than we say upon the tariff question, I reply that if pro- 
tection has slain its thousands the gold standard has slain its 
tens of thousands. If they ask us why we did not embody all 
these things in our platform which we believe, we reply to 
them that when we have restored the money of the constitu- 
tion all other necessarv reforms will be possible, and that 
until that is done there is no reform that can be accomplished. 

Why is it that within three months such a change has come 
over the sentiments of the country? Three months ago, when 
it w^as confidently asserted that those who believed in the gold 
standard would frame our platforms and nominate our can- 
didates, even the advocates of the gold standard did not think 
that we could elect a President ; but they had good reasons for the 



232 Official Proceedings of the 

suspicion, because there is scarcely a State here to-day asking for 
the gold standard that is not within the absolute control of the 
Republican party. But note the change. Mr. McKinley was 
nominated at St. Louis upon a platform that declared for the 
maintenance of the gold standand until it should be changed 
into bimetallism by an international agreement. Mr. McKin- 
LEY was the most popular man among the Republicans and 
everybody three months ago in the Republican party prophesied 
his election. How is it to-day ? Why, that man who used to 
boast that he looked like Napoleon, that man shudders to-day 
when he thinks that he was nominated on the anniversary of 
the battle of Waterloo. Not only that, but as he listens he 
can hear with ever-increasing distinctness the sound of the 
waves as they beat upon the lonely shores of St. Helena. 

Why this change ? Ah, my friends, is not the change 
evident to anyone who will look at the matter ? It is because 
no private character, however pure, no personal popularity, 
however great, can protect from the avenging wrath of an 
indignant people the man who will either declare that he is in 
favor of fastening the gold standard upon this people, or who 
is willing to surrender the right of self-government and place 
legislative control in the hands of foreign potentates and 
powers. 

My friends, the prospect 

(The continued cheering made it impossible for the speaker 
to proceed. Finall}' Mr. Bryan raising his hand, obtained 
silence, and said : I have only ten minutes left, and I ask you 
to let me occupy that time.) 

We go forth confident that we shall win. Why } Because 
upon the paramount issue in this campaign there is not a spot 
of ground upon w^hich the enemy will dare to challenge bat- 
tle. Why, if they tell us that the gold standard is a good 
thing, vv^e point to their platform and tell them that their 
platform pledges the party to get rid of a gold standard, and 
substitute bimetallism. If the gold standard is a good thing 
why try to get rid of it ? If the gold standard, and I might 
call your attention to the fact that some of the very people who 
are in this convention to-day and who tell you that we ought 
to declare in favor of international bimetallism and thereby 
declare that the gold standard is wrong, and that the prin- 



Democratic National Convention. 238 

ciples of bimetallism are better — these very people four months 
ago were open and avowed advocates of the gold standard and 
telling us that we could not legislate two metals together 
even with all the world. 

I want to suggest this truth, that if the gold standard is a 
good thing we ought to declare in favor of its retention 
and not in favor of abandoning it ; and if the gold standard 
is a bad thing why should we wait until some other nations 
are willing to help us to let it go? 

Here is the line of battle. We care not upon which issue 
they force the fight. We are prepared to meet them on either 
issue or on both. If they tell us that the gold standard is the 
standard of civilization we reply to them that this, the most 
enlightened of all nations of the earth, has never declared for 
a gold standard, and both the parties this year are declaring 
against it. If the gold standard is the standard of civilization, 
why, my friends, should w^e not have it.^* So if they come 
to meet us on that we can present the history of our nation. 
More than that. We can tell them this, that they will search 
the pages of history in vain to find a single instance in which 
the common people of any land ever declared themselves 
in favor of a gold standard. They can find where the holders 
of fixed investments have. 

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggla between 
the idle holders of idle capital and the struggling masses who 
produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country ; and 
my friends, it is simply a question that vv^e shall decide upon 
which side shall the Democratic party fight? Upon the side 
of the idle holders of idle capital, or upon the side of the 
struggling masses? That is the question that the party must 
answer first ; and then it must be ans\vered by each individual 
hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as de- 
scribed by the platform, are on the side of the struggling 
masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic 
party. 

There are two ideas of government. There are those who 
believe that if you just legislate to make the well-to-do pros- 
perous that their prosperity will leak through on those be- 
low. The Democratic idea has been that if you legislate 



284 Official Proceedings of the 

to make the masses prosperous their prosperity will find 
its way up and through every class that rests upon it. 

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor 
of the gold standard. I tell you that the great cities rest 
upon these broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities 
and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again 
as if by magic. But destroy our farms and the grass will 
grow in the streets of every city in this country. 

My friends, we shall declare that this nation is able to 
legislate for its own people on every question, without wait- 
ing for the aid or consent of any other nation on earth, and 
upon that issue we expect to carry every single State in this 
Union. 

I shall not slander the fair State of Massachusetts nor the 
State of New York by saying that when its citizens are con- 
fronted with the proposition, "Is this nation able to attend to 
its own business?" — I will not slander either one by saying 
that the people of those States will declare our helpless impo- 
tency as a nation to attend to our own business. It'is the issue 
of 1776 over again. Our ancestors, when but 8,000,000, had 
the courage to declare their political independence of every 
other nation upon earth. Shall we, their descendants, when 
we have grown to 70,000,000, declare that we are less inde- 
pendent than our forefathers? No, my friends, it will never 
be the judgment of this people. Therefore, we care not upon 
what lines the battle is fought. If they say bimetallism is 
good, but we cannot have it till some nation helps us, we re- 
ply that, instead of having a gold standard because England 
has, we shall restore bimetallism, and then let England have 
bimetallism because the United States have. 

If they dare to come out and in the open defend the gold 
standard as a good thing, we shall fight them to the uttermost, 
having behind us the producing masses of the Nation and the 
world. Having behind us the commercial interests and the 
laboring interests and all the toiling masses, we shall answer 
their demands for a gold standard by saying to them, you 
shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of 
thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold. 

The conclusion of Mr. Bryan's speech was the signal 



Democratic National Convention. 235 

for a tremendous outburst of noise, cheers, etc. The stand- 
ards of many States were carried from their places and 
gathered around the Nebraska delegation. Finally order 
having been restored, the Chair recognized Senator Hill, of 
New York. 

Mr. Hill : I desire to make a formal motion for the sub- 
stitution of the financial plank of the minority platform in 
place of the financial plank of the majority. I make that 
motion at this time, and upon that I ask a call of the States. 

Mr. Jones, of Arkansas : I move the previous question 
upon the adoption of the platform and upon the substitution 
for the amendment offered by the gentleman from New 
York. 

The Chair : The question first is upon the demand for 
the previous question. 

Mr. Tillman, of vSouth Carolina: I more as an amend- 
ment to the substitution of the gentlemen from New York, 
the resolution which I offered. 

The Chair ; If the Convention will be in order, the 
Chair will state the question. The gentleman from Arkan- 
sas demands the previous question upon the motion to adopt 
the platform and upon the motions of the gentleman from 
New York to amend that platform, and the motion of the 
gentleman from South Carolina, which he offers as a further 
amendment. The Chair thinks, however, that the questions 
should be separated ; and therefore, will submit the question 
first upon the amendments of the gentleman from New York 
and afterward of the gentleman from South Carolina. 

Mr. Hill : I call the attention of the Chair to the fact 
that there have been other motions made. Some motions have 
been sent to the platform. I ask the Chair w^hether the pre- 
vious question is intended to cut off those motions. 

The Chair : The Chair does not intend to cut them off. 
Does the gentleman from New Y^ork desire the question sub- 
miitted on his amendment as a w4iole ? 



236 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Hill : The gentleman desires a call of the States 
upon the motion for a substitution of one financial plank for 
the other. Afterward there may be a call of the States upon 
the other motion. After that I will be content, so far as I 
am concerned, with a viva voce vote upon the motion to adopt 
the platform. 

The motion was put upon the previous question, and 
the Chair declared the previous question ordered. 

The Chair : The Clerk will now report the first amend- 
ment offered by the gentleman from New York, representing 
the minority of the Committee. 

The Secretary read the proposed amendment as follows: 

" But it should be carefully provided by law at the same 
time that any change in the monetary standard should not 
apply to existing contracts." 

]Mr. Hill : Does the Chair now intend to put that as a 
separate motion.^ I move to substitute one financial plank for 
the other. That is a separate and distinct amendment which 
will come up afterward, and upon which I do not care whether 
we have the roll of the States called or not. 

The Chair : Then the gentleman desires the first substi- 
tute as read, or the amendment as read. 

Mr. Hill : The substitute read. The first of the report 
upon the financial plank. 

The Chair: The Clerk will read the proposed substitute, 

Mr. Hill : He will read the substitute of one financial 
plank for the other. 

The Secretary read the proposed substitute, as follows: 

We declare our belief that the experiment on the part of 
the United States alone of free silver coinage and a change of 
the existing standard of value independently of the action of 
other great nations would not only imperil our finances, but 
\vould retard or entirely prevent the establishment of inter- 
national bimetallism, to which the efforts of the Government 



Democratic National Convention. 237 

should be steadily directed. It would place this country at 
once upon a silver basis, impair contracts, disturb business, 
diminish the purchasing power of the wages of labor, and in- 
flict irreparable evils upon our nation's commerce and indus- 
try. Until international co-operation among the leading na- 
tions in the coinage of silver can be secured we favor the rigid 
maintenance of the existing gold standard as essential to the 
preservation of our national credit, the redemption of our 
public pledges and the keeping inviolate of our country's 
honor. 

We insist that all our paper and silver currency shall be 
kept absolutely at a parity with gold. The Democratic party 
is the party of hard money, and is opposed to legal-tender 
paper money as a part of our permanent financial system, and 
we therefore favor the gradual retirement and cancellation of 
all United States notes and Treasury notes under such legisla- 
tive provisions as will prevent undue contraction. We demand 
that the national credit shall be resolutely maintained at all 
times and under all circumstances. 

The Chair : The gentleman from New York now^ moves 
to substitute that plank which has just been read for the orig- 
inal plank reported by the Committee on Platform. 

The motion was seconded. 

Mr. J. M. Duncan, of Texas : I move to lay the motion 
of the gentleman from Ne\v York on the table. 

The Chair : The Chair thinks the gentleman from Texas 
Avill not insist on this motion, because, under the rules of the 
House of Representatives, if this amendment w^as laid on the 
table it would carry wdth it the main proposition. The ques- 
tion is upon agreeing to the substitute. 

The question was put to the Convention and a viva voce 
vote taken. 

A roll call being demanded, the secretary proceeded to 
call the roll of the States as follows: 



288 Official Proceedings of the 

Yeas. Nays. 

Alabama 22 

Arkansas 16 

California 18 

Colorado 8 

Connecticut 12 

The Chair: The Chair hopes these votes will not be 
applauded ; we will get along much more rapidly. 

The roll call of the States was continued as follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Delaware 5 1 

Florida 8 5 

Georgia 26 

Idaho 6 

Illinois 48 

Indiana 80 

Iowa 26 

Kansas •. . 20 

When Kentucky was called, the Chairman of the dele- 
gation said, " Blackburn's home casts 26 votes no." 

The Chair recognized Mr. W. B. Haldeman, of Ken- 
tucky: 

Mr. Haldeman : In the name of two members of the 
Kentucky delegation sent to this Convention under specific 
instructions by the Democrats of the Fifth Kentucky district, 
I protest against the application on a question of principle of 
that abomination of abominations, the gag law known as the 
unit rule. The delegates from the Fifth Congressional dis- 
trict of Kentucky vote in favor of the minority report. 

Mr. O. M. James, of Kentucky : Mr. Chairman : Ken- 
tucky votes under the unit rule. By the courtesy and kind- 
ness of Kentucky these gentlemen are here, and the unit rule 
applies in Kentucky, and we vote no. 

The vote of Kentucky was recorded in the negative, and 
the roll call was proceeded with, and Louisiana cast 16 
noes. 



Democratic National Convention. 239' 

When Maine was called, the Chairman of the delegation 
announced the vote of lo ayes and 2 noes. The announce- 
ment was challenged by Mr. Holman, and the Chair 
ordered the Secretary to call the roll of the delegation, 
which was done. The Secretary announced the result of 
the vote in the State of Maine as lo ayes, 2 noes. The 
roll call proceeded: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Maryland 12 .4 

Massachusetts . 87 3 

Michigan 11 17 

The Chairman of the Michigan Delegation : Under the 
unit rule Michigan casts her t\venty-eight votes no. 

The roll call was continued as follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Minnesota (one absent) , . . , 11 6 

Mississippi 18 

Missouri 34 

Montana G 

Nebraska . 15 

Nevada 6 

New Hampshire 8 

New Jersey 20 

New York 72 

North Carolina 22 

North Dakota . . 6 

Ohio 4 42 

Mr. L. E. HoLDEN, of Ohio : Under our unit rule Ohio 
casts forty-six votes no. 

The accuracy of the count was challenged and the 
Chair directed the roll of delegates to be called, which was 
done. When Mr. Holliday's vote was announced the 
point of order was raised that Mr. Holliday was not in 
the hall and his vote could not be counted. 

Mr. Long, of Ohio, said that Mr. Holliday voted on 
the call of the State, and his vote was recorded no; where- 



240 Official Proceedings of the 

upon the Chairman announced that it would be so recorded 
now, and overruled the point of order. The call of the 
roll of the State proceeded. The Secretary announced the 
result as four ayes, forty-two noes. 
The roll call proceeded. 

Yeas. Nays. 

Oregon 8 

Pennsylvania , 64 

Rhode Island 8 

South Carolina 18 

South Dakota 8 

Tennessee 24 

Texas 30 

Utah 6 

Vermont 8 

Virginia , 24 

Washington 8 5 

West Virginia 12 

Wisconsin 24 

Mr. E. J. Dockery, of Wisconsin : I challenge the accur- 
acy of the count. 

The Chair : The Clerk will then call the roll of the 
delegates from Wisconsin. 

The State of Wisconsin was polled with the following 
result: 4 nays, 20 yeas. 

The roll was resumed as follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Wyoming " 6 

Alaska. . . . 6 

Arizona 6 

District of Columbia 2 4 

New Mexico 6 

Oklahoma 6 

Indian Territory 6 

The Clerk announced the result of the vote as follows : 
Ayes, 303; Noes, 626; Absent, i. 



Democratic National Convention. 



241 



The vote in detail follows: 



States. Total Vote. 


Ayes. 


Nays. 


Alabama 


22 




22 


Arkansas 


16 




16 


California 


18 


, , 


18 


Colorado 


8 




8 


Connecticut 


12 


12 




Delaware 


6 


5 


1 


Florida 


8 


3 


5 


Georgia 


26 




26 


Idaho 


6 




6 


Illinois 


48 




48 


Indiana 


30 




30 


Iowa 


26 




26 


Kansas . . 


20 




20 


Kentucky 


26 




26 


Louisiana 


16 




16 


Maine 


12 


10 


2 


Maryland 


16 


12 


4 


Massachusetts . . . 


30 


27 


3 


Michigan 


28 




28 


Minnesota* 


18 


11 


6 


Mississippi 


18 




18 


Missouri 


34 




34 


Montana 


6 




6 


Nebraska 


16 




16 


Nevada 


6 




6 


New Hampshire. 


8 


8 


. . 


New Jersey 


20 


20 




*One Absent from 


Minnesota. 





States. Total Vote. Ayes. Nays. 

New York 72 72 

North Carolina. . . 22 . . 22 

North Dakota. ... 6 . . 6 

Ohio 46 .. 46 

Oregon 8 .. 8 

Pennsylvania.... 64 64 

Rhode Island.... 8 8 

South Carolina. . . 18 .. 18 

South Dakota 8 8 ■ . . 

Tennessee 24 .. 24 

Texas 30 .. 30 

Utah 6 . . 6 

Vermont 8 8 

Virginia 24 .. 24 

Washmgton 8 3 5 

West Virginia... 12 .. 12 

Wisconsin 24 24 

Wyoming 6 . . 6 

Territories. 

Alaska 6 6 

Arizona 6 . . 6 

Dist. of Columbia 6 2 4 

New Mexico 6 2 4 

Oklahoma 6 .. 6 

Indian Territory. 6 .. 6 

Total 930 303 626 



Mr. Hill : Mr. President, I now ask for a call by States 
on the other resolution which I offered. 



The Chair 

on each one ? 



Does the gentleman desire a separate vote 



Mr. Hill : No, I do not. I have already stated that upon 
the last two amendments I did not care for a call of the roll 
by States to take up the time of this Convention, but I do ask 
for a roll call upon the amendment relating to the National 
Administration. I ask for the reading of that amendment, 
and on that amendment I ask for a call of the roll by States. 
After that, the others may be voted upon viva voce. 



16 



242 ' Official Proceedings of the 

The Chair : Does the gentleman desire that the roll 
shall be called now upon this amendment ? 

Mr. HiLi. : That is what I wish. 

The Chair : The Clerk will report the amendment offered 
by the gentleman from New York. 

The Clerk read as follows : " We commend the honesty, 
economy, courage and fidelity of the present Democratic 
National Administration." 

The Chair : Upon this amendment the gentleman from 
New" York demands a vote by States. Is that demand 
seconded ? 

Mr. HoLMAN, of Alaine : I second the motion. 

The Chair: The Clerk will call the roll of the States 
again, commencing with Alabama. 

Alabama was called several times without response, and 
no announcement of the vote was made until the amend- 
ment had been read again for the information of the dele- 
gation. Then the roll call proceeded thus: 

Aye. No. 

Alabama 22 

Arkansas 16 

When the Secretary called the State of California the 
chairman of the delegation asked that the roll be called, 
which was done with the following result: Ayes 7; nays 6;. 
absent 5. 

The roll call of the States was then continued as 

follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Colorado 8 

Connecticut , » 12 

Delaware 5 1 

Florida 7 1 

Georgia 26 

Idaho 6 

Illinois 48 

Indiana 80 



Democratic National Convention". 243 

When the Secretary called the State of Iowa, the 
delegates from that State asked that the resolution be read 
again, but objection was made and the request was not 
complied with. The chairman of the delegation announced 
the vote of the State as 26 nays, which was challenged by 
Mr. Stackhouse. The Chair said: " Does the gentleman 
deny the accuracy of the count ? " 

Mr. Stackhouse : Yes, sir, I do. 

The Chair: The Secretary will call the roll of Iowa. 

Mr. Van Waganen, of Iowa : Mr. Chairman, let me 
call your attention to the fact that the federal officeholder who 
makes the objection took the count himself. 

The Secretary called the roll of the Iowa delegation, 
with the following result: Nays 19, ayes 6, and one not 
voting. Under the unit rule the vote was 26 nays. 

Yeas. Nays. 

Kansas 20 

Kentucky ' . . 26 

Louisiana , 16 

The Chair : The Chair desires to ask if the unit rule is 
in force at Louisiana. 

Mr. Marston : I challenge the vote. 

The Chairman : Does the gentleman deny the accuracy 
of the count ? 

Mr. Marston : I wish to have it put on record. 

The Chair : No matter. Does the gentleman deny the 
accuracy of the count? (No response.) The chair overrules 
the point. (The Clerk continues to call.) " Maine." 

The Chair : The clerk will call the names of the dele- 
gates from Maine, the demand therefor being made. 

This was done with the following result — One nay and 
1 1 yeas. 



244 



Official Proceedings of the 



Maryland 16 

Massachusetts (one not voting) 28 

Michigan 20 

Minnesota 17 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana (two decline to vote) 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 8 



Yeas, Nays. 



New Jersey 

Ne-w York 

North Carolina 

North Dakota (one absent). 
Ohio (under the unit rule).. 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

"Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

South Dakota 

Tennessee 

Texas 

Utah 

Vermont . , 

Virginia 



20 

72 



64 

8 

8 



1 

8 

1 
18 
24 

4 
16 

6 



22 

5 

46 

8 



18 

24 

80 

6 

22 



When the State of Virginia was reached, Mr. Bradley 
of that delegation challenged the vote and called for a poll- 
ing of the delegation, with the following result: Ayes 2; 
nays 22. Under the unit rule, twenty-four votes were 
declared to be cast in the negative. 

The Secretary proceeded with the call of the states as 
follows. 

Yeas. Nays. 
Washington , 8 5 

The State of West Virginia was called and the vote was 
announced as nays 11, one not voting. 

After West Virginia had been called and the vote 



Democratic National Convention. 245 

announced Mr. Wallace, of Washington, challenged the 
vote of his own State, and the Secretary called the roll of 
the delegation from Washington, with the following result: 
Ayes 3, Nays 5. 

The Secretary proceeded with the call of States as' fol- 
lows: 

Yeas. Nays. 
Wisconsin 20 4 

yir. James E. Malone, of Wisconsin : I challenge the 
accuracy of the vote. 

The Chair : Does the gentleman deny the accuracy of 
the count? 

Mr. Malone : I challenge the accuracy of the vote. 

The Chair : Unless the gentleman denies the accuracy 
of the count the delegates W'ill not be polled. 

Mr. Malone : I deny the accuracy of the count. 

The Chair : The Clerk, then, will call the list of 
delegates. 

The delegates were polled with the following result: 
Four nays, twenty ayes. 

General Edward S. Bragg : Under the unit rule Wis- 
consin's vote will be recorded twenty-four ayes. 

The Chair : It will be so recorded. 

The Secretary resumed the roll call as follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Wyoming 6 

Alaska 6 

Arizona 6 

District of Columbia 1 5 

New" Mexico y\ 6 

Oklahoma / 6 

Indian Territory 6 

Mr. J. J. Dw^YER, of California : I w^ish you would 



246 Official Proceedings of the 

call the roll of the absentees of California. Four or five of 
us were absent and we want the vote to be recorded. 

The Chair : The gentleman from California asks to have 
the names of the gentlemen who did not vote now called. The 
Clerk will call them. 

The Secretary called the list of those who were absent 
during the former call of the California delegates. 

Mr. DwYER : James V. Coleman desires to change his 
vote from no to aye. Mr. Lane desires to change his vote 
from no to aye. 

The Secretary : The State of California is recorded 11 
ayes, 3 nays, 4 not voting. 

The result of the vote was as follows: Yeas, 357; 
nays, 564; not voting and absent, 9. 
The vote in detail was : 



Democratic National Convention. 



247 



States. 


Total. 


in 

< 


< 


5 


Alabama 


22 

16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

6 

8 

20 

72 

22 

6 

46 

8 

64 

8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 
24 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 


"ii 

5 

7 

"ii 

16 

28 
28 
17 

■"8 
20 

72 

"64 

8 

""8 

""8 
"'3 
"24 
""6 
"l 


22 

16 

3 

8 

.... 

1 
26 

6 
48 
30 
26 
20 
26 
16 

1 

"l 

"l 

18 
34 

4 
16 

6 

"22 
6 

46 
8 

"is 

'-'24 

30 

6 

"24 

5 

, 11 

"'6 

"'6 
5 
6 
6 
6 

• 564 




Arkansas 

California 


""4 

.... 

"2 

.... 

.... 


Colorado 

Connecticut ...... 


Delaware 


Florida . 

Georgia 


Idaho 


Illinois 


Indiana 


Iowa 


Kansas 


Kentucky 




Maine 




Massachusetts 




Minnesota , 


Missouri 




Nebraska 




New Hampshire 




New York ■ 




North Dakota 


Ohio 


Oregon 




Rhode Island 




South Dakota 




Texas 


Utah 


Vermont 




Washington 




Wisconsin 




Alaska 




District of Columbia - 




Oklahoma 










930 


357 


9 







248 Official Proceedings of the 

So the amendment was lost. 

The Chair: The question now is upon the amendment 
offered by the gentleman from New York. He offers it to be 
inserted immediately after the financial plank. 

The amendment was read as follows by the Readings 
Clerk: 

'* But it should be carefully provided by law at the same 
time that any change in the monetary standard should not 
apply to existing contracts." 

The question was put by the Chair and the amendment 
was declared lost. 

The Chair : The next amendment will be read. 

Mr. Hill, of New York : All right. The next 
amendment. 

The amendment was read by the Reading Clerk as fol- 
lows: 

" Our advocacy of the independent free coinage of silver 
being based on the belief that such coinage will effect and 
maintain a parity between gold and silver at the ratio of 16 
to 1, we declare as a pledge of our sincerity that if such 
free coinage shall fail to effect such parity within one year 
from its enactment by law such coinage shall thereupon 
be suspended." 

The Chair : The question is upon agreeing to the 
amendment. 

The question being put, the amendment was lost. 
The Chair recognized Mr. Hill, of New York. 

Mr. Hill : I rise simply for the purpose of calling for 
the roll of States upon the adoption of the platform. 

The Chair : Is there any second to the motion of the 
gentleman from New York ? 

Mr. Goodwin, of Alabama: I second the motion. 



Democratic National Convention. 



249 



The Chair : The gentleman from South CaroHna will 
be recognized on his amendment. 

Mr. Tillman : I desire to say, sir, that the failure to in- 
dorse an express resolution according to parliamentary usage 
carries with it the converse of the proposition. No brave 
man strikes a fallen foe, so I withdraw my amendment. 

The Chair : The question is upon the adoption of the 
platform as reported by the majority of the committee. The 
Secretary will call the roll of States. 



The Secretary called the roll as follows: 



States. Total 

Alabama 

Arkansas 

California 

Colorado.. 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 

Georgia 

Idaho 

Illinois 

Indiana 

Iowa 

Kansas 

Kentucky 

Louisiana , 

Maine 

Maryland 

Massachusetts . . . 

Michigan 

^Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire. 
New Jersey 



Vote. 
22 
16 
18 

8 
12 

6 

8 
26 

6 
48 
30 
26 
20 
26 
16 
12 
16 
30 
28 
18 
18 
34 

6 
16 

6 

8 
20 



Teas. Nays. 
22 
16 
18 



1 

5 
26 

6 
48 
30 
26 
20 
26 
T6 

2 

4 

3 
28 

6 

18 
34 

6 
16 

6 



12 

5 
3 



10 
12 

27 

11 



States. Total 

New York 

North Carolina.. . 

-North Dakota 

Ohio 

Oregon 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island. . . . 
South Carolina.. . 
South Dakota. . . . 

Tennessee 

Texas. 

Utah 

V-ermont.. 

Virginia 

Washington 

West Virginia... . 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 

Territories. 

Alaska 

Arizona 

Dist. of Columbia. 

New Mexico 

Oklahoma 

Indian Territory. 



Vote. 
72 
22 

6 
46 

8 
64 

8 
18 

8 
24 
30 

6 

8 
24 

8- 
12 
24 

6 

6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 



Teas. 

22 

6 

46 



18 

24 

30 

6 

24 

5 

12 



20 



Nays^ 

72 



64 



24 
6 



Total 930 628 301 



*One not voting. 



During the call of the roll, the following interruptions 
occurred. When Iowa's vote was announced, Mr. Stack- 
house said: 



250 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Stackhouse : I challenge the vote of the State of 
Iowa. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to know if the gentleman 
denies that the vote was correctly reported ? 

No such denial being made the roll call proceeded. 

The State of Wisconsin was challenged by Delegate 
HoLGATE, but the accuracy of the count was not denied, 
and no action was taken by the Convention. The Sec- 
retary announced the result of the roll call as follows: Yeas, 
628; nays, 301; absent, i. 

On motion of Senator Jones, of Arkansas, the Con- 
vention took a recess until 8 o'clock p. m. 



OFFICIAL COPY OF PLATFORM. 



We, the Democrats of the United States in National Con- 
vention assembled, do reaffirm our allegiance to those great 
essential principles of justice and liberty, upon which our 
institutions are founded, and which the Democratic Party has 
advocated from Jefferson's time to our own — freedom of speech, 
freedom of the press, freedom of conscience, the preservation 
of personal rights, the equality of all citizens before the law, 
and the faithful observance of constitutional limitations. 

During all these years the Democratic Party has resisted 
the tendency of selfish interests to the centralization of gov- 
ernmental power, and steadfastly maintained the integrity of 
the dual scheme of government established by the founders of 
this Republic of republics. Under its guidance and teachings 
the great principle of local self-government has found its best 
expression in the maintenance of the rights of the States and 
in its assertion of the necessity of confining the general 
government to the exercise of the powers granted by the 
Constitution of the United States. 

The Constitution of the United States guarantees to every 
citizen the rights of civil and religious liberty. The Demo- 



Democratic National Convention. 251 

■cratic Party has always been the exponent of political liberty 
and religious freedom, and it renews its obligations and reaf- 
firms its devotion to these fundamental principles of the Con- 
stitution, f} 

the money plank. ^ 

Recognizing that the money question is paramount to all 
others at this time, we invite attention to the fact that the 
Federal Constitution named silver and gold together as the 
money metals of the United States, and that the first coinage 
law passed by Congress under the Constitution made the silver 
dollar the monetary unit and admitted gold to free coinage at 
a ratio based upon the silver-dollar unit. 

We declare that the act of 1873 demonetizing silver with- 
out the knowledge or approval of the American people has 
resulted in the appreciation of gold and a corresponding fall 
in the prices of commodities produced by the people ; a heavy 
increase in the burden of taxation and of all debts, public and 
private; the enrichment of the money-lending class at home 
and abroad ; the prostration of industry and impoverishment 
of the people. 

We are unalterably opposed to monometallism which has 
locked fast the prosperity of an industrial people in the par- 
alysis of hard times. Gold monometallism is a British policy, 
and its adoption has brought other nations into financial serv- 
itude to London. It is not only un-American, but anti-Amer- 
can, and it can be fastened on the United States only by the 
stifling of that spirit and love of liberty which proclaimed our 
p olitical independence in 1776 and won it in the War of the 
Revolution. 

We demand the free and unlimited coinage of both silver i 
tind gold at the present legal ratio of 16 to 1 ^vithout waiting i 
for the aid or consent of any other nation. We demand that ' 
the standard silver dollar shall be a full legal tender, equally 
with gold, for all debts, public and private, and \ve favor 
such legislation as will prevent for the future the demoneti- 
zation of any kind of legal-tender money by private contract. 

We are opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering 
to the holders of the obligations of the United States the 
option reserved by law^ to the Government of redeeming such 
obligations in either silver coin or gold coin. ^^ 



252 Official Proceedings of the 

interest-bearing bonds. 

We are opposed to the issuing of interest-bearing bonds of 
the United States in time of peace and condemn the trafficking 
with banking syndicates, which, in exchange for bonds and 
at an enormous profit to themselves, supply the Federal Treas- 
ury with gold to maintain the policy of gold monometallism. 

AGAINST NATIONAL BANKS. 

Congress alone "has the po^ver to coin, and issue money, 
and President Jackson declared that this power could not be 
delegated to corporations or individuals. We therefore de- 
nounce the issuance of notes intended to circulate as money 
by National banks as in derogation of the Constitution, and 
we demand that all paper which is made a legal tender for 
public and private debts, or which is receivable for dues to 
the United States, shall be issued by the Government of the 
United States and shall be redeemable in coin. 

TARIFF RESOLUTION. 

We hold that tariff duties should be levied for purposes of 
revenue, such duties to be so adjusted as to operate equally 
throughout the country, and not discriminate between class 
or section, and that taxation should be limited by the needs 
of the Government, honestly and economically administered. 
We denounce as disturbing to business the Republican threat 
to restore the McKinley law, which has twice been con- 
demned by the people in National elections, and w^hich, en- 
acted under the false plea of protection to home industry, 
proved a prolific breeder df trusts and monopolies, enriched 
the few at the expense of the many, restricted trade and de- 
prived the producers of the great American staples of access 
to their natural markets. 

Until the money question is settled we are opposed to any 
agitation for further changes in our tariff' laws, except such as 
are necessary to meet the deficit in revenue caused by the ad- 
verse decision of the Supreme Court on the income tax. But 
for this decision by the Supreme Court, there ^vould be no 
deficit in the revenue under the law passed by a Democratic 
Congress in strict pursuance of the uniform decisions of that 
court for nearly 100 years, that court having in that decision 



Democratic National Committee. 253 

•sustained Constitutional objections to its enactment which had 
previously been overruled by the ablest Judges who have ever 
sat on that bench^/^We declare that it is the duty of Congress 
to use all the Constitutional po\ver which remains after that 
decision, or which may come from its reversal by the court as 
it may hereafter be constituted, so that the burdens of taxation 
may be equally and impartially laid, to the end that wealth 
may bear its due proportion of the expense of the Government. 

immigration and arbitration. 

We hold that the most efficient w^ay of protecting Ameri- 
can labor is to prevent the importation of foreign pauper labor 
to compete with it in the home market, and that the value of 
the home market to our American farmers and artisans is 
greatly reduced by a vicious monetary system which depresses 
the prices of their products belo^v the cost of production, and 
thus deprives them of the means of purchasing the products 
-of our home manufactories ; and as labor creates the \vealth of 
the country, we demand the passage of such laws as may be 
necessary to protect it in all its rights. 

We are in favor of the arbitration of differences between 
employers engaged in interstate commerce and their employes, 
and recommend such legislation as is necessary to carry out 
this principle. 

TRUSTS AND POOLS. 

The absorption of wealth by the few, the consolidation of 
our leading railroad systems, and the formation of trusts and 
pools require a stricter control by the Federal Government of 
those arteries of commerce. We demand the enlargement of 
the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission and such 
restriction and guarantees in the control of railroads as will 
protect the people from robbery and oppression. 

DECLARE FOR ECONOMY. 

We denounce the profligate waste of the money wrung 
from the people by oppressive taxation and the lavish appro- 
priations of recent Republican Congresses, which have kept 
taxes high, while the labor that pays them is unemployed and 
the products of the people's toil are depressed in price till they 
no longer repay the cost of production. We demand a return 



254 Official Proceedings of the 

to that simplicity and economy which befits a Democratic 
Government and a reduction in the number of useless offices 
the salaries of which drain the substance of the people. 

federal interfer'ence in local affairs. 

We denounce arbitrary interference by Federal authorities- 
in local affairs as a violation of the Constitution of the United 
States and a crime against free institutions, and we especially 
object to government by injunction as a new and highly dan- 
gerous form of oppression by which Federal Judges, in con- 
tempt of the laws of the States and rights of citizens, become 
at once legislators, judges and executioners ; and we approve 
the bill passed at the last session of the United States Senate,, 
and now pending in the House of Representatives, relative to 
contempts in Federal courts and providing for trials by jury in 
certain cases of contempt. 

PACIFIC RAILROAD. 

No discrimination should be indulged in by the Govern- 
ment of the United States in favor of any of its debtors. We 
approve of the refusal of the Fifty-third Congress to pass the 
Pacific Railroad Funding bill and denounce the effort of the 
present Republican Congress to enact a similar measure. 

PENSIONS. 

Recognizing the just claims of deserving Union soldiers, 
we heartily indorse the rule of the present Commissioner of 
Pensions, that no names shall be arbitrarily dropped from the 
pension roll ; and the fact of enlistment and service should be 
deemed conclusive evidence against disease and disability 
before enlistment. 

ADMISSION OF TERRITORIES. 

We favor the admission of the Territories of New Mexico, 
Arizona and Oklahoma into the Union as States, and we 
favor the early admission of all the Territories, having the 
necessary population and resources to entitle them to State- 
hood, and, while they remain Territories, we hold that the 
officials appointed to administer the government of any Terri- 
tory, together \vith the District of Columbia and Alaska, 
should be bona fide residents of the Territory or District in. 



Democratic National Convention; 255- 

which their duties are to be performed. The Democratic 
party beheves in home rule and that all public lands of the 
United States should be appropriated to the establishment of 
free homes for Ainerican citizens. 

We recommend that the Territory of Alaska be granted a 
delegate in Congress and that the general land and timber 
laws of the United vStates be extended to said Territory. 

sympathy for CUBA. 

The Monroe doctrine, as originally declared, and as inter- 
preted by succeeding Presidents, is a permanent part of the 
foreign policy of the United States, and must at all times be 
maintained. 

We extend our sympathy to the people of Cuba in their 
heroic struggle for liberty and independence. 

civil service laavs. 

We are opposed to life tenure in the public service, except 
as provided in the Constitution. We favor appointments 
based on merit, fixed terms of office, and such an administra- / 
tion of the civil service laAvs as will afford equal opportunities- ' 
to all citizens of ascertained fitness. 

third term resolution. 

We declare it to be the unwritten la\v of this Republic,, 
established by custom and usage of 100 years and sanctioned 
by the examples of the greatest and v/isest of those who 
founded and have maintained our Government that no man 
should be eligible for a third term of the Presidential office. 

improvement of waterways. 

The Federal Government should care for and improve the 
Mississippi river and other great waterways of the Republic,^ 
so as to secure for the interior States easy and cheap transpor- 
tation to tide water. When any waterway of the Repub- 
lic is of sufficient importance to demand aid of the Gov- 
ernment such aid should be extended upon a definite plan of 
continuous work until permanent improvement is secured. 

conclusion. 

Confiding in the justice of our cause and the necessity of 
its success at the polls, we submit the foregoing declaration 



256 Official Proceedings of the 

of principles and purposes to the considerate judgment of the 
American people. We invite the support of all citizens who 
approve them and who desire to have them made effective 
through legislation, for the relief of the people and the resto- 
ration of the country's prosperity. 



Washington, D. C, August 31, 1896. 
I certify that the above is the correct copy of the plat- 
form adopted at Chicago, 111., by the National Democratic 
Convention, July 9th, 1896. 

JAMES D. RICHARDSON, 

Chairman, pro tempore. 



Democratic National Convention . 257 



"THIRD DAY. 



EVENING SESSION. 



Chicago, III., July 9, 1896. 

The Convention was called to order by acting Chairman 
Mr. Richardson, of Tennessee, at 8:26 p. m., in the fol- 
lowing words: 

The Chair : The Convention will be in order. The 
Chair appeals to the gentlemen on the floor to cease their 
conversation. 

Senator Jones, of Arkansas: I move that the roll of the 
States be called, that nominations may be made for President 
and Vice President of the United States.. 

This motion was adopted. 

The Chair : The roll of the States wall be called. The 
Chair desires to say that by an agreement entered into by and 
between the friends of the candidates the nominating and sec- 
onding speeches will be confined to thirty ininutes time ; these 
thirty minutes may be used when the principal speech is made, 
or they may be used by gentlemen w^ho second the noinina- 
tions. The Clerk wall now call the roll. 

The State of Arkansas being called, Senator Jones, of 
that State, said: ''Arkansas yields the floor to Senator 
George G. Vest, of Missouri." 

The Chair : The Chair presents to the Convention the 

Senator from Missouri, Mr. Vest, who will address you for 

ten minutes. 
17 



258 Official Proceedings of the 

Senator Vest: Gentlemen of the Convention : Through 
the courtesy of the Arkansas delegation, for which we are 
very grateful, the Democrats of Missouri are able at this time 
to present as a candidate for the Presidential nomination from 
this Convention the name of Richard Parks Bland, of 
Missouri. 

Revolutions do not begin with the rich and prosperous.. 
They represent the protest of those who are sufiering from 
present conditions, and whose demands for relief are unheeded 
by the beneficiaries of unjust and oppressive legislation. 

When a profound sense of wrong, evolved from years of 
distress, fastens upon the public mind in a free country, and 
the people are determined to have redress, a leader is always 
found who is a platform in himself, and to whom they in- 
stinctively turn as the logical exponent of their hopes. 

The people are not iconoclasts nor false to their convic- 
tions. They followed Jeff^erson when he assailed the central- 
izing and monarchial doctrines of the old Federalists and was 
denounced as a communist and leveler by the wealth and cul- 
ture of New England and New York. 

They followed Jackson when he took the United States 
bank by the throat, and was proclaimed a tyrant and ruffian 
by the usurers and money kings. 

They followed Lincoln when he attacked the slave power 
and declared that this country could not exist " half slave and 
half free." 

The great movement of bimetallism — the free and unlim- 
ited coinage of gold and silver at the ratio of 16 to 1 — and 
the restoration of silver to its constitutional status is 

" No sapling chance-sown by the fountain, 
Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade." 

It has come to stay. 

It is a protest against the wrong and outrage of 1878,. 
when, without debate, and with the knowledge of only a few 
men in Congress, the silver dollar was stricken from the coin- 
age and the red despot of gold made supreme as to all 
values. 

It is a declaration by the freemen of America that the 
United States must withdraw from the conspiracy which was 
formed to destroy one-half of the metallic money of the worlds 



Democratic National Convention. 259 

in order to establish the slavery of greed and usury, more 
degrading than the tyranny of armed force. 

It is the stern demand from unrequited toil, bankrupt 
enterprise and ruined homes, for a change in the money sys~ 
tem which for years has brought disaster and desolation. 

In this crisis of our country and party we must take ha 
step backward in platform nor candidate. We want no- 
uncertain nor doubtful leader. No "Laggard in peace or das- 
tard in war," no latter-day silver saint, but a grizzled and 
scarred veteran, who has borne the heat and burthen of the 
day, and whose breast is marked from edge of sword and 
point of lance on a hundred fields. 

Twenty years ago the battle for silver was begun in the halls 
of Congress by a modest, unpretending, brave man, not an 
iridescent or meteoric statesman, but of the people and from 
the people, who has never faltered for an instant in the great 
struggle. Others doubted and wavered, some yielded to 
blandishment and patronage, and are now holding office 
under the gold power ; other misrepresented their constituents 
and have been provided for in the national infirmary of the 
present administration ; but Richard Parks Bland stands 
now \vhere he stood then, the living, breathing embodiment 
of the silver cause. 

He struck with steel point the golden shield of the money 
monopolists, as did Ivanhoe that of the proud templar in the 
lists at Ashby, and has neither asked nor given quarter. 

Nor is he a narrow, one-idead man. For twenty-two years 
in Congress he fought in the front ranks for Democratic prin- 
ciples and policies, as taught by Jefferson. 

He stood by the side of Randall and risked health and 
life to defeat the first Force bill. He opposed ably and ear- 
nestly that crowning tariff infamy, the McKinley Act, and 
again was among the foremost opponents of the last Force 
bill, which passed the House, but was defeated in the Senate. 

He introduced the first free coinage measure in Congress^ 
and was the author of the vSeigniorage bill, -which passed both 
Houses and was vetoed by President Cleveland. 

If this be an obscure record, where can be found the 
career of any public servant which deserves the plaudits of his 
countrymen ? 



260 Official Proceedings of the 

The Dainocrats of IMissouri, who have parsed through the 
fiery furnace of Republican proscription seven times heated, 
and whose State flag has always been placed beneath the 
great oriflamme of the National Democracy, make no apologv 
nor excuse when offering such a candidate for the Presidency. 

If you ask " Whence comes our candidate?" w^e answer: 
'' Not from the usurers' den nor temple of Mammon, where 
the clink of gold drowns the voice of patriotism ; but from 
the farm, the workshop, the mine — from the hearts and 
homes of the people." 

To reject him is to put a brand upon rugged honesty and 
undaunted courage, and to chill the hearts and hopes of those 
-who, during all these years, have waited for this hour of tri- 
umph. To nominate him is to make our party again that of 
the people, and to insure success. 

" Give us Silver Dick, and silver quick, 
And we will make McKinley sick 
In the ides of next November." 

When the confusion and applause which greeted the 
close of this speech subsided, the Chair said: 

The Chair : I present to the Convention, Hon. David 
Overmyer, of Kansas. 

Mr. Overmyer : Mr. President and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : In the name of the Democracy of Kansas ; in 
the name of the farmers of Kansas ; in the name of the farmers 
of the United States ; in the name of the homeless w^anderers 
^vho throng your streets in quest of bread ; in the name of that 
mighty army of the unemployed ; in the name of that mightier 
army which has risen in insurrection against every form of 
economic despotism, I second the nomination of that illustrious 
statesman and patriot, that Tiberius Gracchus, Silver Dick 
Bland, of Missouri. A man who understands the significance 
of the fact that the American Democracy took the Constitution 
w^hen it was a mere commission of public authority and added 
to it the ten great amendments ^vhich stand forever as an 
impassable barrier against the invasive instincts of power ; a 
man who knows that if power is not required to stop some- 
where power will stop nowhere ; that the first lesson of liberty 
is jealousy of power, and that the first maxim of liberty is that 



Democratic National Convention. 261 

safety lies in distrust of power ; a man who knows that no 
nation ever enriched itself by taxing itself ; that no tax is 
either constitutional or just, except it be levied for a public 
purpose and that any tax ^vhich places the burden of govern- 
ment upon the backs of the poor while exempting the rich, is 
iniquitous ; a man \vho knows that there are things dearer 
than gold — character, exalted character ; manhood, unconquer- 
able manhood; honor, immortal honor — and' that these high 
qualities cannot long be retained by men menaced with mort- 
gages, dominated by landlords and bowed down under the bitter 
and hopeless bondage of perpetual debt ;that all which dignifies, 
all which elevates, all which exalts our mortal life, must 
wither and perish under the desolating touch of gold. 

Ill fares that land, to hastening ills a prey, 
Where wealth accumulates and men decay; 
Princes and lords may flourish or may fade — 
A breath may make them as a breath has made; 
A bold yeomanry, their country's pride, 
When once destroyed can never be supplied. 

A man who knows that money is the life-blood of the body 
commercial, and that no man or set of men can ever have a 
right to ligate the limbs of that body or to arrest or impede 
the normal circulation of that blood ; a man who knows tha^ 
money coined from either of the precious metals is sound 
money, as attested by the experience and Avisdom of all the 
ages past; a man who knows that the monev of the Constitu- 
tion is sound money ; that money ^vhich is good enough to pay 
every private debt is good enough to pay every public debt ; 
that money which was good enough to pay George Washing- 
ton for his expenses incurred in establishing our liberty, is 
good enough to pay Ickleheimer or Morgan or any other 
man in the wide, wide world; that the money of Jefferson, 
of Jackson, of Madison, of Monroe and of Bentox is 
honest money, and that he who says it is not insults the 
memory of those " dead but sceptered sovereigns who rule our 
spirits from their urns." A man who knows that international 
agreement is a mere device to appease the people and once 
more disappoint and betray them; and that they who would 
place this nation under subjection to Great Britain in the 
matter of the standard of values are no friends of tlieir coun- 



262 Official rROCEEDiNGS of the 

try or their kind ; and that the true ratio between the metals 
is sanctioned by time, 16 to 1. A man who knows that this 
nation's honor is not in the keeping of that predatory and 
piratical element, that leagued and confederated scoundrelism 
which loots the treasury, stifles commerce, paralyzes industry 
and plunders the world ; a man who cannot be ruled by con- 
solidated monopoly or aggregated diabolism ; a man who 
knows that no nation ev^er prospered where agriculture has 
languished, and that commerce has never languished where 
agriculture has prospered. 

He knows that a vast majority of the American people are 
farmers; that when prosperity shall return it will come first 
tothe^e dust-c Dvered millions, whose hard, sun-browned hands 
never touch a polluted dollar, who work in the fields under 
the open skies, under the burning sun of summer and through 
the frosts and storms of winter from the time the stars grow 
dim in the West till they rise in the East ; and when these 
prosper all who trade and who transport, all who buy and all 
who sell \vill prosper, and that until this happens none can 
prosper except those w4io speculate in human misery. A man 
who is in complete sympathy with the common people ; who 
knows the tragedy of poverty and the pathos of the short but 
simple annals of the poor; a man around whose simple rural 
home is no wall of iron to keep out his fellow men ; a man 
w^ho needs no':, and who has no bodyguard, but whose shield 
and protection are the love and sympathy of his fellow men. 
Such a man is Richard P. Bland. He is as patient as Wash- 
ington, as sympathetic as Jefferson, as brave and as just as 
Jackson, and as wise and sagacious as any man who eve.r 
occupied the presidential chair. He can command the suf- 
frages of more Democrats than any other man standing upon a 
free silver platform, and he can command the suffrages of 
more silver men who are not Democrats than any other Dem- 
ocrat. He can carry every State of the South. 

Hs can carry the prairie States and the mountain States 
and the Pacific States, and he can carry more States of the 
central and eastern part of the country than any other man 
standing in the position which the great Democratic party has 
here taken. Nominate him and he will be elected by such a 



Democratic National Convention. 263 

majority as has never been witnessed in this country. Then 
will be fulfilled the Californian's prophecy of 

" That land from out whose depths shall rise 

The new-time prophet; that wide domain 

From out whose awful depths shall come, 

All clad in skins with dusty feet, 

A man fresh from his Maker's hand, 

A singer singing ever sweet. 

A charmer charming very wise. 

And then all men shall not be dumb; 

Nay, not be dumb, for he shall say; 

'Take heed, for I prepare the way for weary feet.' " 

The eyes of the whole country, the eyes of the whole 
world are upon us ; the great heart of mankind beats with anx- 
ious expectation of the issue of this Convention. Upon that 
result hangs the future ^veal or woe of this country. By the 
ashes of your ancestors ; by the memories of your great and 
venerated dead ; by the love which you bear to your children ; 
by the duty w^hich you owe- to posterity; in the name of all 
that men hold sacred, I appeal to you to resolve this great issue 
aright, and there is one name the very utterance of which is a 
complete solution — Bland, Bland, Bland. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to say that the nomina- 
tion of Mr. Bland will now be seconded by J. R. Williams, 
•of Illinois. 

Mr. Williams : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : In behalf of the great and growing Democracy 
of Illinois I rise to second the nomination of a candidate who 
has done more than any other living American for the resto- 
ration of silver and for this triumphant victory. A candidate 
who is not an orator, but a statesman of sound judgment and 
many years of useful experience ; a man whose long and loyal 
services for free coinage of silver has made his illustrious name 
a watchword in everv home of America. 

Having served four years with Mr. Bland on the Coinage 
Committee and six years in the House of Representatives, I 
know^ him well. He is honest, he is able, he is positive and he 
is brave. He has all the noble attributes of a noble man, 
Democratic on all questions and at all times. I have seen his 
abilitv tried, I have seen his Democracv tested. There never 



264 Official Proceedings of the 

was an occasion during my six years of observation when Mr. 
Bland was not ready and able to discuss intelligently any of 
the great public measures that came before the American Con- 
gress for its consideration. The records of his public services 
will demonstrate to the country his superior intelligence and 
ability as a statesman. 

It is true he has not the eloquence of a Webster ; but his 
statements of public questions are always clear, concise and 
intelligent and his twenty years of public service have given 
him an acquaintance with public men and public measures that 
but few other candidates have. The Democracy of Illinois is 
proud of all the illustrious names that will be presented to 
this Convention. We would rejoice to honor them all. But 
this great silver question which is now boiling over in this 
Convention, rises far above any and all candidat- s. And there 
is no man in America whose name is so identified with this 
great issue of silver as ''Silver Dick" Bland of Missouri. 

The people of the United States have been deceived so 
often with straddling platforms and straddling candidates that 
Ave cannot afford to nominate a candidate whose breathless 
silence on this great silver question would cast any suspicion 
upon his devotion to our cause. 

Nominate Bland, and the people will know you are in 
earnest. Nominate Bland, and you will have a candidate 
whose high character, whose splendid ability, whose true 
Democracy, Avhose devotion to silver has been tested by twenty 
years of public service. Take Bland, and you know what 
he is. But if you take a candidate whose life and character 
have been less subjected to the great sunlight of public life, 
you may find in him many weak spots after his nomination ., 

Take Bland and you will not be asked how long has he 
been a Democrat or how does he stand on silver. Nominate 
Bland and no Republican words of his against Democracy \v\\\ 
rise up before us in the campaign to chill our enthusiam or 
Aveaken our support. 

It has been said that we must nominate a man who Avill 
get Republican votes. I say, first of all, let us nominate a 
man who can get Democratic votes — a man whose name will 
enthuse the Democracy of this country and bring to the polls 
thousands and thousands of disappointed men who remained at 



. Democratic National Convention. 265- 

home four years ago. Nominate Bland, and $4(,)0,0Un,()()() of 
silver dollars under the Bland act will rise up before the 
American people and appeal for his election. 

Nominate him and you will have a candidate strong in )ms 
integrity, strong in his Democracy, strong in his devotion to 
silver and strong in the hearts of his countrymen. Nominate 
Bland — name him now — and the great silver waves of public 
sentiment will begin to rise higher and roll faster across the 
grand Republic until they have buried beneath their mighty 
force that British policy of a single standard. Let us do this, 
my fellow Democrats, in all fairness, and our patriotic efforts 
in this great cause of humanity \vill be crowned with gold and 
silver — victory and prosperity. 

When Mr. Williams had concluded his remarks, the 
call of the States was continued. When the State of Cali- 
fornia was called W. W. Foote said: 

Mr. Foote : California desired to nominate S tepiien 
M. White, the distinguished presiding officer of this Con- 
vention, but under the instructions of Mr. VViriTE, he posi- 
tively declines to let us present his name. Therefore you 
may pass California. 

The call of the states was proceeded with, and no fur- 
ther name was placed before the Convention until the State 
of Georgia was reached, when the Chairman of the dele- 
gation announced that Hon. H. T. Lewis would place in 
nomination the candidate who was to receive the vote of 
the Georgia delegation. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to present to the Conven- 
tion Lion. LIenry T. Lewis, of Georgia. 

Mr. Lewis : Mr. President and Gentleuien of the Con- 
vention : I do not intend to make a speecii, but simply in 
behalf of the Democratic party of the State of Georgia, to 
place in nomination as the Democratic candidate for the Presi- 
dent of the United vStates a distinguished citizen, whose very 
name is an earnest of success, whose public record will insure 
Democratic victory, whose public life and public record are 
loved and honored by the American people. vShould public 



266 Official Proceedings of the 

office be bestowed as a reward for public service, then no man 
merits the reward more than he. 

Is public office a public trust? Then in no hands can be 
more safely lodged this greatest trust in the gift of the Amer- 
ican people than in his. In the political storms that have 
swept over this country he has stood on the field of battle 
among the leaders of the Democratic hosts like Saul among 
the Israelites, head and shoulders above all the rest. As Mr. 
Prentiss said of the immortal Clay, so we can truthfully 
say of him, "That his civil rewards will not yield in splen- 
dor to the brightest helmet that ever bloomed upon a war-, 
rior's brow.'' 

He needs no speech to introduce him to this Convention. 
He needs no encomium to commend him to the people of the 
United States. Honor him, fellow Democrats, and you will 
honor yourselves ; nominate him and you will reflect credit 
upon the party you represent; honor him and you will ^vin 
for yourselves the plaudits of your constituents and the bless- 
ings of posterity. I refer, fellow citizens, to William J. 
Br VAN, of Nebraska. 

This announcement was followed by a long period 
of noise, cheers and confusion. When it abated the Chair 
said: 

The Chair : The Chair will no\v introduce to the Con- 
vention Hon. T. K.' Klutz, of North Carolina, who will 
second the nomination of Mr. Bryan. 

Mr. Klutz : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : At the behest of the yeoman Democracy of the 
good old State of North Carolina, I second the nomination of 
that young giant of the West, that friend of the people, that 
champion of the lowly, that apostle and prophet of this great 
crusade for financial reform, William J. Bryan, of 
Nebraska. 

He can poll every Democratic vote in every section of this 
great country- that any other candidate here named can do. 
And more than that, he can poll more votes from persons of 
different political affiliations and do more to unite the friends 
of free silver than all of them put together. 



Democratic National Convention. 267 

Cynics tell us that oratory is dead ; that the admiration of 
■civic virtues is lost to our people, but this splendid ovation 
that you gave to-day to William J. Bryan, the splendid 
tribute that you paid to his manhood, to his oratory, to his 
patriotism and to his sincerity, gives the lie to both of those 
observations. In the 3'oung prime of his great powers, 
known as a fearless tribune of the people, known for his 
-advocacy of the cause of the lowly, known as the friend of 
free silver and as the champion of financial reform, eloquent 
as Clav, patriotic as Webster or Lincoln, if, he is 
elected, as he ^vill be if he is nominated , he will be the Presi- 
'dent of all classes and all sections of this great country of ours. 

The Chair : I now present to the Convention Hon. 
'George F. Williams, of Massachusetts, who will second the 
nomination of Mr. Bryan. 

Mr. Williams : The State of Georgia has requested me 
to add voice to its wish in this Convention, and as we are 
about to crown a leader in this great agricultural movement 
^vhich is giving new hope and life to the Democracy, I beg to 
submit as a new sign and token the gold sheath of Nebraska's 
waving grain. We want the strength of youth for the hard- 
ships of a new cause. We want a loyal heart that can burn 
bot with the lire of purpose. We want a young arm to wield 
the sword for an indignant people; new, fresh sympathies for 
new woes, unfailing vigor in a desperate contest, a young 
■giant out of the loins of a great Republic. We want no 
Napoleon, whose conception of government is too near the 
image of a throne to be consistent w^ith the genius of Ameri- 
can liberty. Whom I present now is a new Cicero to meet 
the new Catalines of to-day. 

The Chair : The Chair now^ desires to present to the 
Conv^ention Hon. Thomas J. Kernan, of Louisiana. 

Mr. Kernan : Mr. Chairman and fellow Democrats : 
The United States of America no longer kneel like credulous 
children at the feet of Europe. Long enough ago, as you have 
often enough been told, this great Republic of the West 
■declared our political independence of the mother country ; 
but it has remained for you, this grand gathering of the 



268 Official Proceedings of the 

Democratic hosts of this great Republic to declare our inde- 
pendence of the monetary despotism of the same hard old 
step-mother. We have to-day declared that we will no longer 
await her royal pleasure, nor that of her nursling dependents, 
to give us leave to be free in fact as well as in name. We 
have this day declared, unlike our Republican brethren, that 
we will not bow down and worship the Golden Calf which 
England has set up for the perpetual adoration of her under- 
lings. We have refused to permit this idol to command us in 
the words of the Deity, " I am the Lord thy God; thou shalt 
have no other gods before me." We have proclaimed an- 
other deity ; we have declared this day, that henceforth both 
gold and silver shall rule equal sovereigns in the world of 
finance. 

This is not a revolution ; it is a restoration. It determines 
not that gold shall be despoiled of any of her just power, but 
only that silver shall have her own again. To every assertion 
from Republicans, and I may say also from our qitasl Demo- 
cratic friends, who say that to pay in silver means repudiation 
of obligations made payable in coin, we reply that " ^ve believe 
that we can make silver equally as valuable as gold without 
your help ; with your help we know vs^e can do it. Then join 
us in re-establishing universal bimetallism and then repudia- 
tion becomes impossible." 

Upon this occasion, as upon all others in the great crises 
of the nation, the Democratic party stands forth as the cham- 
pion of the people, the friend of the poor, and the protector of 
the oppressed. Not only bv this declaration of industrial inde- 
pendence do we this day send forth tidings of great joy to all 
the toiling millions of this overburdened land ; but every 
principle declared in the platform you have made here to-day, 
breathes the spirit of American freedom, and bids them be of 
good cheer, for the day of deliverance is at hand. To sub- 
stantially compl'?te this great M^ork, it is only necessary 

(At this point the speaker was interrupted by noise and 
confusion, to which he said) I note with pleasure that I am 
receiving the respectful attention of the delegates upon this 
floor ; and for the jeers of the gallery I care no more than I 
care for the jeers of the Republicans. 

I say that to substantially complete the work of this Con- 



Democratic National Convention. 1200 

vention it only remains to name the candidate who will lit 
the platform. I say, in the nomination of the candidate, 
whose nomination I have the honor to second on behalf of 
the State of Louisiana, that it is difficult to determine whether 
the platform was made for him, or whether he was made for 
the platform. 

Now, gfentlemen of the Convention, in the name of the 
Democracy of the State of Louisiana, in the name of the 
farmers of this broad land everywhere, from the waving grain 
fields of tlie North, and the blossoming cotton fields of the 
South, they who know in the man whom I shall name a friend 
who believes with them that if the golden rays of the sum- 
mer sun must ripen the harvest, that there is neeti of the 
silver beams of the harvest moon to gather it in safety. I 
name the silver-tongued orator of Nebraska, William J. 
Bryan. . I believe that to nominate him is to elect him ; I 
believe that to elect him is to restore business and to return 
to prosperity; and when his term of office shall have ended, 
I believe that we Democrats can truly say what has been so 
well said of another, that "he smote the rock of the public 
resources and it streamed with revenue ; that he touched the 
portal of the public credit and it rolled open at his feet." 

The call of the States was proceeded with, and no can- 
didate was presented until the State of Indiana was reached, 
when Hon. David Turpie ascended the platform. 

The Chair : The Chair will present to the Convention 
Hon. David Turpie, of Indiana. 

Hon. Mr. Turpie : The choice of a candidate for the 
Presidency by the National Democratic Convention, of one 
who is to be the Chief Magistrate of this country for the next 
official term, of a successor to the manv illustrious statesmen 
of our political faith who have served in that exalted position, 
so easily becomes the subject of glowing zeal and fancy, that 
the act and duty of selection are prone to be obscured by the 
glamor of the theme. Yet we ought to realize that the result 
is a plain question of arithmetic, depending upon a simple 
count of numbers, and that for manv other reasons our action 



270 Official Proceedings of the 

herein should be determined only by the most rigid scrutiny y, 
and by the most careful calculation. 

We ask then, as practical men, where should this nomina- 
tion be placed? Indiana has long been known as the arena 
of the most severe and closely fought political contests. It is 
a member of the great Democratic phalanx of the North, 
including New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, but, 
strangely isolated, it has stood alone. 

Upon the East and West, and upon the North, we have, 
ordinarily, hostile borders of intense spirit and activity ; and 
even upon the South, the migration to us across the water of 
the Ohio, which occurs regularly in the Presidential year, is 
usually of such complexion as only to give aid and comfort to 
the enemy. In a State so nearly balanced that for years there 
has not been, in a Presidential election, a majority, either 
way, of ten thousand, in a total vote of four or five hundred 
thousand, the condition requires that our Democracy stand 
always embattled, whether awaiting victory or defeat — 
always prepared. 

We submit to the delegations from the great States of 
Tennessee, of Georgia, of Mississippi, and others more cer- 
tainly situated as to their political life and progress, what 
would you give, what would you not give, to make this State 
as certain as your own.? How and when shall you help us to 
send you the message, in November nex-t, of victory .^^ This 
is the place, the time is now, to write that message. You 
can write that message to-day, ready for transmission, if your 
favor shall make the man of our choice the nominee of this 
Convention. 

Survey the field, examine its various positions, throw the 
searchlight of inspection upon the situs of the different can- 
didacies; you will find that Indiana is the strategic point and 
pivot of this conflict. The prestige, the power, the honor of 
this nomination are great, but not too great to be used as a 
means of assured success. 

Let us not be misled by the fervid predictions of over con- 
fidence, by the contagious and stirring enthusiasm of the pass- 
ing hour. Remember, gentlemen, that the returns of the 
election are not yet received ; they will not begin to arrive 
until many months hence. We must overcome an enemy 



Democratic National Convention. 271 

strongly fortressed against attack, reinforced by influences, 
to-day unnamed, unknown, flushed with the shout of recent 
triumph. We may make an error which shall cost us the 
whole stake, an erior irretrievable. The opportunity for suc- 
cess is here, but also that of defeat. Let every man so act 
that he may not have to say hereafter, "Ah, I had not thought 
of that," as has been done more than once before. We may 
court defeat and disaster, as a lover w^oos his bride, by failing 
to put the right man in the right place. 

Let us then, consult reason. Let us calmly weigh proba- 
bilities, and compute the chances at such a ratio as shall 
include and cover all contingencies. Let us dispose of the aid 
of this prestige of nomination where it will be most highly 
appreciated, where it will be most effective, where it is most 
needed, and where it must win. 

Our candidate had the good fortune to be born in the State 
of Kentucky, was reared to manhood in one of the old Ken- 
tucky homes as near to mansions in the skies as any habitation 
on this planet. He was educated and graduated at Center 
College, Danville, in its palmiest days of yore, from whose 
doors came McCreary, Vest, Blackburn, Stevenson and 
others, men of National fame and distinction. He belongs^ 
by birth and lineage, to the South. The South has no wor- 
thier or more noble son. 

He married early in life the daughter of one well known 
in the history of our State, Governor and Senator Whitcomb. 
He commenced life as a farmer in one of the most fertile sec- 
tions of the valley of the Wabash. Prosperity, well pleased 
and justly earned, has waited upon his footsteps. 

Protection he needed not, save that of his pure heart and 

stalwart arm. He is now, and always has been a farmer. He 

has walked for years in the furrow ; he has stepped off the 

"lands", he is not only a hearer, but a doer of the word noted 

in the old adage, 

" He who by the plow would thrive, 
Himself must either hold or drive." 

Our candidate belongs to the largest, the most ancient and 
honorable business association of the world. Much is now 
said about the business, and business interests of this country. 
The business of a country is that vocation in which the larger 



272 Official Proceedings of the 

number of the inhabitiints are engaged. Agriculture employs 
a greater number of \s^orkmen than any other calling, hardly 
less than that of all others combined. We ask the delegates 
of this Convention to deliberately consider whether it may not 
be well worth the while to make a choice of one who is in the 
closest natural alliance with this most numerous and most 
influential body of our fellow citizens, one who has been all 
his life a member of this grand confraternity of the field and 
farm. 

It is fifty-five years since a farmer appeared at the East 
front of the Capitol to take the oath as President upon 
Inauguration day. The inauguration and service of Indiana's 
choice would be a reminder of the earlier, the ideal days of this 
Republic when, as tradition relates, Jefferson left his farm at 
Monticello, traveled on horseback to the seat of Government, 
without ceremony took the constitutional obligation, and was 
inducted into ofhce. 

Our candidate is, and has been from his youth up to this 
hour, after the straightest sect of our political school, a Dem- 
ocrat. An intelligent, able, earnest and most diligent laborer 
in the cause. Plis first public service was that of a member 
of the General Assembly, to which he had been chosen by his 
friends and neighbors in and near the county of his residence. 
In 1(S90 he was elected Secretary of State of the State of In- 
diana. After a very exciting and laborious canvass, in 1892, 
he was chosen Governor of Indiana, the office he now holds, 
and in which he has shown those rare qualities of wise admin- 
istration, executive skill and genius, unwearied and conscien- 
tious discharge of duty, in such manner as to have challenged, 
alike, the admiration and approval of men of all parties in our 
Commonwealth. 

In this friend of ours, for whom, not for his sake, but for 
our own, we solicit your favor and support, you ^vill find the 
best attainments of the scholar and the statesman fitly joined 
together, and a most intimate acquaintance vs^ith the wants 
and interests of the many upon whose suffrages the success of 
these, our labors, must depend. 

The person whose name we shall present has never been 
beaten in a popular election in his own State. Our State, the 
State which by every sort of accent and emphasis is pushed, 



Democratic National Convextiox. 2TB 

at this juncture, to the front, where the men in the gap of 
this great controversy abide, this State which danger haunts, 
which doubt has known and marked, this State we offer while 
we ask the man. 

He whose name \ve shall announce for your consideration, 
comes, not as a guest or sojourner to this great National 
Council. He comes as a member and inmate of the family to 
his house and home wherein he has gained a right of domicile 
by lifelong fealty to the cause of American Democracy. 

Upon the issue of the tariff, of federal election laws, of 
the liberty of the citizen, of the disposition of the public 
domain to actual settlers only, in opposition to all subsidies to 
private corporations, in favor of all the rights and privileges 
of Organized Labor, and of still further legislation toward 
that beneficent end, our candidate has stood with us, and for 
us through many years of heated quarrel and debate, and upon 
that question, now so conspicuous, his opinions have long 
been known, and have often, both in his own State and else- 
\vhere, been the subject of the most public and explicit declar- 
ation. 

Our candidate believes in the immediate restoration of sil- 
ver to the full franchise of the mint, that the standard silver 
dollar should be coined, without restriction, at the same ratio 
of sixteen to one, as was formerly by our law established, and 
when so coined, that it shall be a legal tender for all debt. 

He is not in favor of waiting for the action of European 
nations upon this subject, and perceives no reason for defer- 
ring or postponing our legislation for the remonetization of sil- 
ver, to suit the convenience, assent or agreement of other 
governments. 

Ardently sympathizing with the Republic of Cuba, he is- 
also strongly attached to the doctrine of Monroe . 

An American in every fiber, he would resist foreign aggres- 
sion in any form. He heartily denounces as un-American the 
Republican platform adopted at St. Louis, which would main- 
tain, and continue in this country that alien rule of foreign 
policy, the English single standard of gold and which proposes 
to reduce the government and the people of the Linited States, 
financially, to their ancient condition as a colonial possession 
of the British crown. He thinks that the freedom and inde- 

18 



274 Official Proceedings of the 

pendence of the mint and coinage of the United States are as 
necessary to the national prosperity as any other of our liber- 
ties ; these rights, once ours, now lost, from whatever causes, 
must and shall be regained. 

Thus the State, the man, the cause are mergfed, merged at 
last into one, the one request, the single entreaty, the momen- 
tous ultimate appeal, an appeal to your wisdom, to your seri- 
ous judgment, to your most discreet discernment. 

And I now, therefore, in pursuance of the instructions of 
the united Democracy of our State, expressed in Convention, 
and of the unanimous action of the delegates here present, do 
in all confidence place in nomination as a candidate for the 
Presidency, the name of Claude Matthews, of Indiana. 

Senator Turpie's voice not being powerful proved 
inadequate to the task of filling the hall; during the 
■delivery of his speech, which was barely audible at the 
table of the Official Stenographer, the noise and confusion 
became so great that the Chair instructed the police in the 
galleries to eject any one who disturbed the proceedings of 
the Convention. 

Senator John Martin, of Kansas : That declaration has 
been made so often from the platform, that the audience has 
lost faith in its efficacy. I want to 'see you do it, and we 
shall expect you to do it ; and the best thing you can do is to 
commence now, and clear out these people. There are hun- 
dreds of men inside this hall who have no right here, and 
w^ho interrupt the business of the Convention. 

Mr. G. S. Long, of Ohio: I move you, sir, that if the 
same disrespect is shown another speaker as was shown Sena- 
tor TuRPiE, that we adjourn until to-morrow morning, then 
the delegates and the officers can have control of the order of 
this Convention. 

The Chair : The Chair will again make the announce- 
ment that unless order is restored there will be no one 
admitted to the hall to-morrow except the delegates and 
the alternates. The Chair desires to say that persons in 
the gallery, in front and in the rear, are the guests of this 



Democratic National Convention. 275 

Convention, and they should favor us with good behavior ; 
tiiey should favor us with common politeness, and the Chair 
appeals to persons in the audience to give us perfect quiet, 
to the end that the business of the Convention may be con- 
ducted in an orderly manner. 

I now present Hon. Oscar A. Trippet, of California, 
who will second the nomination of Governor Matthews. 

Mr. Trippet : Gentlemen of the Democratic Conven- 
tion : California is the greatest gold-producing State'in the 
Union, but notwithstanding this great fact and the advantage 
she would gain by reason of a single gold standard, she is not 
jealous of her silver-producing sister States, and joins \vith 
the demand of the people for a free and unlimited coinage of 
silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. In recognition of the wishes of 
her people the Republican party of that great State sent to 
the recent convention at St. Louis a delegation instructed in 
favor of the free and unlimited coinage of silver. That dele- 
gation returned to their homes in defeat and disgrace, wearing 
the gold badges dictated by Wall street and the inoney sharks 
of Europe. 

The Democracy of California recently assembled in the 
largest and most enthusiastic Convention ever held within the 
State, and that Convention also unanimously instructed its 
delegates to this Convention to vote as a unit for the free and 
unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1. 

The delegates of this Convention will return to their 
homes, flushed with victory to receive the plaudits of a grateful 
people. 

At St. Louis w^as heard the voice of Wall street, at which 
England rejoiced. To-day is heard the voice of the people of 
America ; and John Bull will groan. 

How often have we heard from the Republican platform 
the denunciation of the Democratic party for a financial 
alliance with England, and now this same party with singular 
inconsistency has joined heart and soul with England against 
the demands of a suffering people. 

This Convention having adopted a platform which declares 
in favor of the honest money of our forefathers, the delegates 
of the empire State of the Pacific coast desire the nomination 



276 Official Proceedings of the 

by this Convention of a man in harmony with the principles 
announced. This great State extends her hand toward the 
Atlantic seaboard and asks to be met half way, and that a 
western man be selected as the nominee of this Convention. 
Without wishing to say aught in disparagement of other gen- 
tlemen whose names have been presented to this Convention, 
I take great pleasure in seconding the nomination of Governor 
Matthews, of Indiana. 

This is a Convention of the people, and what is more 
proper for this Convention to do than to. select as its standard 
bearer a man who springs from that great class of American 
people — the farmQrs of the United States. 

Like a Cincinnatus, he was called from the plow to pre- 
side over the destinies of the great State of Indiana, and so 
fully has he met every expectation that he has sprung into 
National prominence and respect more rapidly than any other 
man of his generation. 

I think with other delegates coming here from the Pacific 
slope that if this Convention will nominate this distinguished 
citizen of the great middle west he will lead to victory the 
Democratic cohorts in Noveinber. 

At the close of Mr. Long's speech, the Secretary 
resumed the call of States, the first then reached being the 
State of Iowa. Mr. Fred White, of Iowa, came to the 
platform. 

The Chair : The Chair desires to present to the Con- 
vention Hon. Frederick White, of Iowa. 

Mr. White : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : I am authorized by the Democracy of Iowa to 
present to this Convention for nomination to the high office of 
President the name of Horace Boies, of our State. I want 
to assure this Convention in advance that this is not the result 
of any question of mere local pride, nor is it the result of any 
consideration of the question of mere availability. We ask 
you to nominate the candidate of our choice upon far broader 
grounds — upon the ground that Horace Boies is emphatically 
a broad man. Those of us who know him best do not hesitate.. 



Democratic National Convention. 277 

either here or elsewhere, to declare with all the confidence 
that a thorough knowledge of the truth can inspire that he is 
a man of the staunchest character, possessing a powerful per- 
sonality and equipped \vith a combination of mental qualities 
that will make him, if elected, an ideal executive. Knowing 
as we all do that the political situation of the country is 
a grave and ominous one, this Convention must not ignore, 
nor even evade, the responsibility this situation creates, ^vhich 
is to give to the American people a candidate the mention of 
^vhose name, ^vherever kno^vn, ^vill carry with it ari over- 
whelming strength, and stand, in case of election, as an 
unqualified guarantee for the entire safety in the management 
of all public affairs, and the just settlement of every pressing 
question, and the speedy inauguration of a vigorous reign of 
exact justice. 

Neither in formulating a policy nor in the execution of the 
same, nor yet in presenting an argument upon the merits or 
demerits of any public question, has Governor Boies ever 
striven in the least degree to create a sensation. To his ever- 
lasting honor it must be said that in the doing of these things 
he has never failed to make a deep impression. This is the 
ideal test by which the capacity of a public man should be 
judged ; this is the highest standard by which a statesman's 
reliability and usefulness should be ascertained and determined. 

If you select Governor Boies as your candidate and the 
people ratify your decision in November we can promise you 
no pyrotechnical display from the White House during his 
administration ; there will be no rockets sent up, the explosion 
of which will frighten the timorous or furnish a subject for 
foolish talk of the superficial. There will be no sensational 
performances upon the political trapeze at the executive man- 
sion while Horace Boies is its occupant ; he will write no 
startling messages upon exciting public topics. We will 
promise you none of these performances ; but I will tell you 
what we can and do promise you : and that is the inaugura- 
tion and the faithful execution of a policy that will commend 
itself to every philosophic mind and be applauded by every 
sincere patriot; a policy that will be characterized throughout 
by the invigorating course of hard common sense and be all 
aglow with the everlasting sunshine of noble intentions — a 



278 Official Proceedings of the 

policy the primary object of which will not be the creation of 
opportunities for the unnatural increase of the already excess- 
ive fortunes of an avaricious class, but the strict maintenance 
of the natural and constitutional right of every citizen care- 
fully preserved, including that great body of our population, 
the working classes; the people who produce our national 
wealth; who never tire in their devotion to the constitution ; ' 
who never desert their country's cause at any stage of any 
peril; who are always true and steadfast, even in the very 
midst of an overwhelming crisis; who furnish the volunteer 
soldiers and sailors in time of war, and earn the wherewith to 
pay the costofw^ar when it is over; the people who are the 
very mainstay of free government — to secure to these a larger 
share of the fruit of their labor ; to secure to these impartial 
justice will be one of the cardinal principles, fully developed 
in the policy of the Boies administration. To secure to him who 
earns the dollar the dollar he earns is the task that will be vigor- 
ously exacted of the statesmanship of the future. That type 
of statesmanship which so persistently and successfully plotted 
to pilfer from the industrious, that the idle may thrive, will be 
given its death next November if you men here are wise in 
your counsels and provide the opportunity to the people to 
strike the blow^. 

Horace Boies was born in New York State and came to 
lov/a m his early manhood. He came" not as an adventurer, 
but with a fixed purpose of building up a permanent home, 
which he did at the town of Waterloo. While he was thus 
voluntarily and resolutely incurring all the inconveniences of 
a frontier life, the result is that in his mature years the people 
of his State have loaded him down with the richest honors and 
rewards in their power to bestow ; he is to-day an inseparable 
figure in the conspicuous part of the phenomenal history of 
our State. 

Let me beg of this Convention the privilege of one 
glimpse of Iowa history. With the question of Iowa's being 
a great State, concerning the capacity of her soil to produce 
uniformly abundant crops, I w^ill not deal. It is enough to 
say that the diplomas awarded to lov^a by the management 
of the World's Columbian Exposition is the official declara- 
tion which secures to us what has been before conceded by 



De:mocrxVtic National Convkntiox. 279 

all — viz., the crowning glory of standing at the head of the 
long column of the agricultural States of this nation. Neither 
drought nor flood has ever been powerful enough in Iowa to 
constitute what in other localities \vas a natural calamity. I 
have raised fifty bushels of solid corn to the acre, upon which 
not one drop of rain fell from the time it came up until the 
ear was fully grown. There is perhaps not another spot in 
this ^vide world where such a thing is possible. 

But while we are easily supreme in the corn field, our 
Democrats have had a hard road to hoe in politics. The tor- 
ments inflicted by the seven plagues of Egypt must have been 
a solid chunk of comfort compared with the treatment 
accorded Iowa Democrats by the 60,000, 70,000 and 80,000 
uninterrupted Republican majority which for more than a 
generation delighted them in making an annual picnic out of 
election day, and just for the fun of the thing, trampled the 
Iowa Democracy into the very earth. This huge "army of 
Republican voters was dominated by the spirit of inexplicable 
fanaticism, and the more we combatted this spirit the fiercer 
it grew. Naturally Democrats became disheartened and 
scarce. When this Republican recklessness was nearing the 
culminating point, and through sumptuary legislation every 
guaranty of personal liberty was endangered ; when acts 
which throughout the civilized world are regarded as natural 
and treated as lawful were in Iowa defined as crimes and 
compared to capital off'enses ; when the constitutional protec- 
tion, trial by jury, which for centuries has been esteemed as 
the very climax of all the glory of Anglo-Saxon civilization ; 
when this was about to be eliminated from our judicial sys- 
tem, and the cold, barbarous system of Russia was to be sub- 
stituted ; when the whole machinery of our local government, 
the greatest of all democratic principles, the principle of home 
rule, w^as about ro be SAvept out of existence; when every 
lover of freedom was on the point of despairing ; when 
there was no Democratic leader anywhere in sight wise and 
bold enough to face the crisis, there was heard the voice of 
one as speaking from the wilderness ; it was the magic voice 
of Horace Boies summoning disheartened men to heroic 
action. He it was w^ho leaped to the very front and alone 
defied the seemingly irresistible column of an exultant foe — a 



280 Official Proceedings of the 

foe that had never been chastened by defeat. He accom- 
plished what all men united in declaring the impossible; for 
in two great contests which followed, which in many respects 
have no parallel in the history of American politics. Horace 
Boies came off victor, and thus did he forever avert the dan 
ger of having a veritable despotism planted upon the fruitful 
soil of a free State. 

A soldier can show his courage only in battle ; a sailor his 
fearlessness only while a storm is raging ; the fireman in a 
great city can only exhibit that sublime type of heroism which 
we all so much admire during the time of an actual conflagra- 
tion, when property is to be saved and imperiled lives are to 
be rescued ; so a statesman can only sho\v his real capacity, 
can only demonstrate the full measure of his wisdom and 
power during a crisis, and it is only during an actual crisis 
that the higher qualities of statesmanship can be developed 
and tested. That Horace Boies possesses this rarest of all 
humane capacities, the power to rise equal and superior to a 
crisis and control it, is attested by the history of our State and 
concurrent testimony of political friend and foe. This is the 
man, who stands before the American people equipped with 
these supreme qualifications, whom we ask this Convention 
to nominate. 

Upon the overshadowing issue of this campaign Governor 
Boies stands upon an invulnerable platform, the Constitution 
of his country, inasmuch as the Constitution, in defining what 
the State shall use as " legal tender in the payment of debts," 
designates not gold or silver, but gold and silver. Governor 
BoiES^believes that the bimetallic system thus provided for in 
the fundamental law of the land is the system the Democratic 
party must indorse and uphold. He believes that so long as 
the Constitution remains unchanged Congress has no power 
to demonetize either metal. Hence, in common with the 
great mass of the American people, he believes that the de- 
monetization of silver was not an ordinary political blunder, 
but an actual crime, and he can conceive of no condition which 
can possibly arise that would justify the Democratic party in 
justifying that crime or in helping to perpetuate its direful 
results. Governor Boies does not believe in a dishonest 50- 
cent dollar, as it would work injury to the creditor class; 



Democratic National Convention. 281 

neither does he believe in the 200-cent dollar, which is still 
more dishonest, as it unquestionably involves the bankruptcy 
of the debtor class. Governor Boies believes in an honest 
American dollar, authorized not by the Parliament, but by the 
law of the American Congress, and coined for use among the 
American people. He believes in a gold dollar of 22.2 grains 
of gold and a silver dollar just sixteen times heavier. 

Having rebelled against British influence over a century 
ago, ^vinning the fight when a mere weakling ; having now 
developed into the strongest people on the face of the .earth, 
clearly entitling us to the leadership among nations, Governor 
Boies believes it would be not merely pitiable coAvardice on 
our part, but actual treason to the people, should we now 
capitulate to English greed. 

The finger of a kind fate points to the election of Horace 
Boies. History seems to be anxious to repeat itself. Give 
us the man from Waterloo and allies ^vill flock to his standard 
which will destroy Mark Hanna's Napoleon No. 2 as 
effectually as the European allies destroyed the French Na- 
poleon No. 1. 

At the conclusion of the speech there occurred a repe- 
tition of the noise and confusion which had taken place at 
different times during the Convention. The appearance of 
a young woman at the eastern end of the hall, persistently 
cheering for Boies, finally attracted the attention of the 
•entire assemblage, and she was escorted by the Iowa dele- 
gation to the floor, and twenty minutes elapsed before the 
business of the Convention could be resumed. 

The CiiAiR : The Chair presents Hon. T. A. Smith, of 
Minnesota. 

Mr. Smith : In beginning the few remarks I have to 
make I shall have to make the same apology that old " Jack " 
Falstaff made on one occasion, that he was ''hoarse with 
hollowing and singing of anthems." I am hoarse with hol- 
lowing and singing of anthems for this glorious silver cause, 
but my voice has not yet entirely died away to such an extent 
that I cannot raise it with a feeble shout for Horace Boies, 
the grand old commoner of the Hawkeye State. 



282 Official Proceedings of the 

My friends, you of the South with whom political strife is 
not a question of victory, but one simply of majorities ; you 
gentlemen \vho live in the close States, what we might call 
the border States in politics, where a good, stout, jfighting 
Democracy and a strong organization insures you victory a 
goodly portion of the time, you, perhaps, have no conception 
of the difficulties under which we, the Democrats of the 
Northwest, have labored prior to the last ten years. 

In fact, the great Dr. Samuel Johnson described our 
condition well when he said on one occasion that a woman's 
preaching was like a dog's walking on its hind legs ; you did 
not expect to see it done well; you were surprised to see it 
done at all. Well, that Avas very much like our fighting prior 
to the last ten years ; and yet during those ten years what 
have we done? In several cases we have elected complete 
State tickets; in all of those States, without exception, we 
have grasped the brightest jewels from the Republican crown 
and have captured a great many of the Congressional districts, 
sending members to Congress to vote against iniquitous Re- 
publican schemes, against Force Bills and the Sherman Bill, 
and Tariff Bills, McKinley Bills— Bill McKinley's Bill. 

Yes, gentlemen, even in Minnesota we have gone forth to 
battle — in darkest Minnesota, not fruitlessly, even ; we have 
brought back spoils and are entitled to the honor of a triumph. 
But if that has been the case throughout the Northwest, how 
has it been in Iowa? I remember when Horace Boies first 
came upon the field of action. He was nominated in the face 
of an adverse majority of 75,000. No one dreamed that he 
would be elected, and yet, making a masterly canvass, he was 
elected by a good respectable majority, and a thrill of exulta- 
tion went through the bosom of every Democrat in the North- 
west when they learned that the stout fighting Democracy of 
Iowa had raised him on their shield and elected him their 
chosen chief. 

But, my friends, there is another consideration which I 
wish to mention, and which ought to be a very potent one in 
this Convention. If it were not for Horace Boies ^ve would 
not have a silver majority here at all. You remember the 
depressed condition that existed in the cause of silver prior to 
his appearance in the field. Michigan had just been carried 



Democratic National Convention. 28B 

by the gold standard. All at once Horace Boies threw 
down his gauge of battle to the federal officeholders marshaled 
against him in Iowa, and what was the result.^ The result 
^vas that the prairies were on fire with indignation. They 
came from the hamlets and from the farms and elected twenty- 
six majority — twenty-six delegates to sit in this Convention 
and to vote for free silver and Horace Botes. It was the 
crucial point of the battle. The cause of silver was then won. 
From the time when Iowa declared for Horace Boies and 
free silver the cause was won throughout the Union. It was 
like the charge of Kellermann at the battle of Marengo. It 
was like that of Cromwell at the battle of Naseby. 

Now, my friends, I say that we can do no better — my 
strength Avill not permit of me speaking any more, even if I 
had the inclination to do so — we cannot do any better than to 
nominate this grand old man. He is not a man of one idea. 
He is a man of broad mental grasp, capable of meeting and 
grappling with all these complicated questions that come up 
in public life. Therefore, my friends, I take pleasure in 
nominating, or seconding the nomination of Horace Boies, 
the grand old commoner of Iowa. 

The Secretary resumed the call of States. 

Kansas had no name to present, but when Kentucky was 
reached Mr. Ollie James, the chairman of the delegation, 
said: 

Mr. James : Mr. Chairman, I desire to announce that the 
Kentucky delegation have selected the Hon. John S. Rhea, 
delegate from the State-at-large to present the State's great- 
est Democrat, Joe Blackburn. 

The Chair : The Chair presents to the Convention Hon. 
John S. Rhea. 

Mr. Rhea : Mr. Chairman and fellow Democrats : Ken- 
tucky greets her brethren of all this Union with the assurance 
that no matter from whence our candidate will come, Ken- 
tucky ^vill support him. But she begs that you do remember 
that like Napoleon's drummer boy, when to Napoleon's 
legions the battle seemed lost at Marengo and he ordered the 
retreat, Joe Blackburn said to Carlisle : " Sire, I do not 



284 Official Proceedings of the 

know how. War has never taught me the retreat, but I can 
sound a charge. Oh, I can sound a charge that will call the 
dead back into line. I beat that charge at the bridge of Lodi, 
I beat it at the Pyramids. Oh may I beat it here to-day." 

Kentucky presents Joe Blackburn to the Union, because 
to Kentuckians he is "Joe" Blackburn, and that means all. 
He is big enough and broad enough and brainy enough to sat- 
isfy every Democrat in the land. I know that he comes from 
the South ; I know that he was a Confederate soldier ; I know 
that he comes from a section the valor and patriotism of whose 
men has challenged the admiration, as it has elicited the won- 
der of the world, and whose women are the expression of 
God's tenderest beneficence to men, that have gladdened the 
eye or filled the heart of mankind with love, respect and admi- 
ration. When the tongue of slander and the heart of bate 
was hurled against his people he stood as a pillar of cloud by 
day and a pillar of fire by night and when the memory of 
Hancock, the superb, was attacked by Ingalls, Joe Black- 
burn was the first at the front to defend the stars and stripes 
under \vhich Hancock fought. He has stood upon both floors 
of the American Congress, battling for the equal rights of all 
the states and all the people. Now, his candidacy is not sec- 
tional, nor is the issue upon which, if he be nominated, he will 
make the race a sectional one. The free and unlimited coin- 
age of silver may have found its home in the South or West 
to start with ; it has been nurtured under sunny skies, and 
comes laden with the perfume of the tropics, but its home is 
by the frozen lakes. The lightning starts in the clouds but its 
ilash encircles the earth. Justice has its seat in the bosom of 
God, but its principles pervade the world. 

The call to arms from California has been echoed back 
from Maine. Its potential adherents are found from ocean to 
ocean, from the gulf to the lakes. They come with the smell of 
fresh plow^ed earth upon their garments, or they may come 
with their faces beofrimed with smoke, and bear the stain that 
labor bears, but they are the people v^ho pay the taxes and 
fight the battles for their country. Freedom's battles are never 
fought at bankers' banquets. No board of trade, no chamber 
of commerce, no clearing house association crossed lofty 
heights nor blazed their way through trackless forests to fight 



Democratic National Convention. 285 

this battle of the American revolution. When this great 
nation of ours was threatened with dissolution, where were 
these banqueting bankers, these boards of trade, these cham- 
bers of commerce? They were engaged in the laudable and 
patriotic business of buying bonds with 40-cent paper, irre- 
deemable dollars that they might thereafter now demand here 
that they should be paid back again in a 200-cent gold dollar. 

Now the candidacy of Senator Blackburn appeals to the 
whole Union of States and in no sectional spirit, asking no 
sectional fight, because if nominated and elected he will-be no 
sectioniil president, but he will be a president of the whole 
people. Now, what does that signify? You will remember 
that three years ago he stood upon the floors of your American 
Congress and refused to bend the supple hinges of the knee 
where thrift might follow fawning. He said to the President 
of the United States : Let your collectorships, your post- 
offices and your federal patronage go. They cannot buy my 
manhood and cannot buy my principle, or my loyalty to the peo- 
ple. His whole career, covering quite one-third of a century, 
has been a lifelong expression of his sympathy and love for 
the interests of labor. Why, had he his way he would coin 
into legal tender dollars every drop of sweat which falls from 
labor's brow. As to the man I present, who can challenge his 
Democracy? Why, he fights with the boys in the trenches. 
Who can doubt his honor? Who can impeach his capacity? 
He has shown himself the peer in the American Congress, of 
the ablest in the land. His voice has been heard in the forty 
five States of the American Union, battling for the supremacy 
of Democratic principles and the election of Democratic can- 
didates. It may be said of him, as it has been said of another 
great Kentuckian, who has been gathered to his fathers, that 
his greatness stood confessed in the people's tears. 

He is resolute and courageous and clean of envy, and yet 
not wanting in that finer ambition which makes men greater 
and better. His honor is unimpregnable and his simplicity^ is 
sublime. No country every had a truer son, no cause a nobler 
champion, no people a bolder defender; and if he goes down 
in defeat it may still be said, no cause had a purer victim. 
Put y^our standard in his hands and he will carry it to success; 
but if it be the will of this great Convention of Democrats 



286 Ofpicial Proceedings of the 

that he shall remain longer in the ranks, obeying now as he 
always has, the will of his party, which to him is supreme, he 
will step down and out and be found battling for any man who 
is your choice. 

The Chair: The Chair will now present Hon, W. W. 
FooTE, of California. 

Mr. FooTE : Mr. Chairman and Delegates of the National 
Convention : California, the greatest gold-producing State 
in the world, has sent to this Convention eighteen delegates 
who are pledged to the unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio 
of 16 to 1, without any foreign interference whatever. Cali- 
fornia has further instructed her delegates to present the name 
of the Hon. Stephen M. White, the distinguished Senator 
from that State, and the presiding officer of this Convention. 
But Senator White has declined to permit his name to be 
presented, and I am here, with the consent of my delegation, 
to second the nomination of a man whom I believe to be as 
good if not a better representative of the free silver cause as 
any other man who has been named, in the person of the Hon. 
J. C. S. Blackburn, of Kentucky. 

We have adopted a platform of principles here to-day 
which speaks in no uncertain tone to the people of the United 
States. The silver plank of this . Convention can be under- 
stood by any man who can read the English language. The 
grand army of Democracy is to-day enlisted under the silver 
banner ; and my experience is that when you have an army 
you ought to have a leader in whom they have confidence. 
Who could lead the silver forces to victory better than Joe 
Blackburn, of Kentucky .f^ Who fought the combined 
cohorts of the Treasury Department and of the Federal 
Administration all during the session of that legislature? The 
news was wafted to distant California ; Joe Blackburn 
appeared, like the white-plumed Knights of Navarre, battling 
for that cause ; and, although the State went Republican, 
Joe Blackburn achieved a victory of which he may well be 
proud. The only objection that I have heard to his nomina- 
tion to the Presidency, is that his vs^ise counsels might be 
missed in the Senate of the United States. 

I have no words to say against any other candidate who 



Democratic National Convention. 287 

has been nominated in this Convention. Joe Blackburn is 
a candidate upon principle. He is not being paraded around 
here by any Joan of Arc ; and he has undertaken to appeal, 
not to your prejudices, but to your principles. California, 
however she may vote, has the highest respect for the dis- 
tinguished Senator from Kentucky, and when we come to our 
sober second-sense, Joe Blackburn ought to receive the 
nomination of this Convention. You have seen him here 
upon this platform — a gallant and a distinguished man — a 
man who would honor the Presidency of the United States — 
and for myself and other delegates from the State of Califor- 
nia I take pride and pleasure in seconding his nomination, 

Louisiana, Maine and Maryland had no names to pre- 
sent. When Massachusetts was reached, Hon. John W. 
Corcoran, the chairman of the delegation, said: 

Mr. Corcoran : By unanimous vote of the Democrats of 
Massachusetts, the delegation is instructed to present the 
name of Governor Russell ; but, by his direction and 
because of the platform, he declined the use of his name. 
Therefore we have no candidate to offer, and ask that we be 
passed. That is the sentiment of Massachusetts — not by 
proxy, but by its delegates. 

Michigan, Minnesota and Mississippi had no candidates, 
but when Missouri was called, Governor Stone announced 
that the State of Missouri would yield to the State of Ar- 
kansas. 

The Chair : The Chair presents to the Convention 
Hon. Paul Jones, of Arkansas. 

Mr. Jones : For President of the United States of Amer- 
ica I nominate Richard P. Bland, of Missouri. A few years 
ago the mutterings of a storm were heard all over this union. 
The storm clouds gathered and burst in all their might and 
majesty over the west and the south. That storm was the 
mighty uprising of a great and free people in defense of their 
rights and against wrong and oppression. They looked about 
to find a leader worthy of their cause, and their eyes turned 
to that peerless Democrat of Missouri and from the Missis- 



288 Official Proceedings of the 

sippi River to the east and to the west the name of Bland was 
shouted over this country until the echoes died in the expanse 
of t^vo oceans. 

Bland is no new man, no experiment in Democracy. For 
twenty-two years he has fought the battles of our party under 
the terrible blaze of a political search light and no spot has 
been found on his escutcheon, no flaw in his political armor. 
He is the logical candidate upon the great issue that now con- 
fronts the American people, and which the American people 
must settle in November. When we speak of Thermopyl^ 
we think of Leonidas ; when we talk of the triumphant Roman 
eagles we think of the C^^sars ; when we speak of the Revolu- 
tion our minds go back to Washington ; of the Declaration of 
Independence, and we worship a Jefferson ; of the National 
Bank, and we admire Jackson; when we speak of the free 
and unlimited coinage of silver our minds go back instinctively 
to Richard P. Bland. 

Since silver was murdered in the house of her friends by 
the stealth of a cowardly assassin, Bland has fought inces- 
santly for its restoration. He is the very embodiment, the 
incarnation of the doctrine of silver. When we want to know 
what the character of a man is we ask what his neighbors say 
about him. Who is Bland, and what do his neighbors say? 
On the east we have the empire State of Illinois with this 
imperial city by the lake, a State which has given this nation 
the great Lincoln and to its people the fearless Altgeld. 

Tested by every rule he stands before you in the full meas- 
ure of a Democrat and in the full measure of a citizen. His 
life has been pure and as spotless as the snows of the north 
and his heart is as warm and genial as the suns of the south. 
I say to you in all honesty he is worthy to be your nominee. 
The nomination of Bland would mean more to the American 
people than all the silver planks you can put into your plat- 
form. This is an issue that was made by the people, and 
Bland is the people's man. 

No politician is directing this grand Ship of State which 
the Democracy has launched in this campaign. The people 
are at the helm and they demand the leader of their choice. 
They demand not only the choice of this great Convention, 
but they demand a majority of the silver delegates of this 



Democratic National Convention. 289 

Convention. Nominate him upon the platform which you 
have, and every true, every honest Democrat will support 
him. Not only that, but under his banner will enlist every 
patriot, who for his country's good, for the honor and pros- 
perity of the people has broken political allignments and is 
willing to do battle for his country. 

Fellow citizens, you have given us free silver and now I 
want you to give us "Free Silver Dick" and, by the gods, 
we will carry the election in November. I thank you. 

Montana was called, but had no candidate to present. 
When the Secretary ^ave Nebraska its opportunity the 
Chairman of that delegation said: 

For the present the State of Nebraska passes, but at the 
proper time will take pleasure in casting its votes for the 
man whom we honor and love, the Hon. William J. Bryan. 

Neither Nevada nor New Hampshire had any candidate 
to put in nomination, and when New Jersey was called the 
Chairman of the delegation said: 

New Jersey does not desire to nominate any man upon the 
platform of this Convention. 

New York being called. Senator Hill announced: 

New^ York has no candidate to present to this Convention. 

The Secretary then resumed the calling of the roll. 
North Carolina and North Dakota were passed, but when 
Ohio was reached the Chairman introduced Col. A. W. 
Patrick, of that State: 

Col. Patrick : Mr. President and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : Considering your arduous labors for the last 
three days and the great patience with which you have heard 
the eulogiums passed upon the different candidates, it seems 
to me that brevity in the announcement of candidates is now 
the soul of sense. Therefore, gentlemen of the Convention, 
in no set phrases of speech, but inspired by the love that I 
have for one of the most magnificent characters that grace 
this country, I at once, iri the name of the Democracy of the 

19 



290 Official Proceedings of the 

great State of Ohio, put in nomination as candidate for Pres- 
ident, the Hon. John R. McLean, of Cincinnati. 

I shall pass no extravagant eulogium on the man. His 
whole life speaks for itself. He is honest, he is capable, he 
is a Democrat, he is the son of a sire that did more to mold 
the Democracy of Ohio into triumph than any man in it. I 
will say another thing here, and brother delegates, listen and 
give me your attention while I say it. There are fine eulo- 
gies passed upon the favorite sons that have been mentioned 
here to-night. Some of them may carr}^ Ohio against William 
McKiNLEY, but, by the eternal gods, John McLean will 
carry Ohio against William McKinley. If you give us 
John R. McLean I promise you here that Ohio will be the 
Waterloo of that Napoleon, and Salt River his St. Helena. 

Here I inight halt, but bear with me, for I promise you 
that I will be brief. I will not trespass upon your time, but 
bear with me when I tell you that from the beginning of this 
great ^var of millionaires against the millions, of the pluto- 
crats against the people, of the classes against the masses, 
John McLean's heart and soul have been with the people. 
Let me say another thing; in all great efforts for the benefit 
of the people, there are what w^e call pioneers, men who 
go ahead of the army, who go ahead even of the vanguard, 
who, in the darkness of a political night raise the beacon of 
hope and right and of relief in behalf of the people. I say 
to you, when the cause of free silver was w^eak, when the 
members supporting it were few^, John R. McLean was one 
of the bravest soldiers, and the noblest pioneer of them all. 

Let me say further, that his great journal, filled with argu- 
ments in favor of the people, was scattered every day in the 
year, like snowflakes, into the ranks of the people of twenty- 
States ; and that great organ did more to educate the people 
and develop the growth of bimetallism and free coinage of 
silver than any other one influence west of the Allegheny 
mountains. Then, brother Democrats, [ ask you this: If he 
w^as with you in this cause when you "svere weak, what will 
you do for him now in the majesty of your strength? In the 
triumph of the cause, will you forget the pioneers that led the 
^vay? I hope not. I believe not. I say to you delegates, 
into \vhose faces I am looking, that we hand over the claims 



DExMOCratic National Committee, 291 

of John R. McLean into your hands, into your hearts, 
relying upon the integrity and gratitude of the great Demo- 
cratic masses, I thank you. gentlemen, for your attention. 

At this point Hon. John A. Bankhead, of Alabama, 
took the chair. The Secretary resumed the call of the roll 
at Oregon, which had no candidate to present. 

When Pennsylvania was next called Hon. William F. 
Harrity, the Chairman of the delegation from that State, 
said: 

Mr. Chairman : Pennsylvania has no candidate to present 
at this time, but when the roll of States shall be called for the 
purpose of ascertaining preferences as to candidates, Pennsyl- 
vania ^vill express her wishes upon that subject. 

The Secretary resumed the call of the roll. Rhode 
Island, South Carolina and Tennessee having no candidates. 
When Texas was reached the Chairman of that delegation 
announced that the State of Texas wished to express the 
preferences of that delegation through one of its members, 
Hon. J. W. Bailey. Mr; Bailey went upon the stand. 
Chairman Bankhead said: 

The Chair : Gentlemen of the Convention : I have the 
honor of introducing to you Hon. Joseph W. Bailey, of the 
State of Texas. 

Mr. Bailey : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention: For the first time since the close of our unhappy 
Civil war a large majority of those who vote in the coming 
Presidential contest will be governed in the casting of their 
ballots by their convictions upon the great economic question 
of the day. This Convention has already adopted a platform 
which defines with admirable force and clearness the* position 
of our party upon the question, and it is now our duty to per- 
fect our work by nominating a candidate whose words and 
deeds are better than a written pledge that he will faithfully 
keep the promises which our platform makes. Who most 
completely fulfills this supreme requirement.'' If I should ask 
this audience, or if I should ask any audience assembled on. 



292 Official Proceedings of the 

the American continent, and under the American flag, what 
Democrat among all these splendid leaders of our party best 
represents the issue which to-day divides the Arrerican people 
and which must be decided at the polls on the 3rd day of next 
November, I should be answered with the name of Richard 
Bland. And, gentlemen of the Convention, he not only best 
typifies the issue which is to be paramount in the next election, 
but he has been a fearless and consistent advocate of those 
immortal principles of Democracy which our Democratic 
forefathers cherished and defended. Those who doubt the 
w^isdom of his nomination sometimes venture to express the 
fear that he is not great enough to be our President. To them 
I say, examine his record. For twenty-two years he sat in 
the Federal House of Representatives, and during all those 
years he voted ricjht as often and he voted wrong as seldom as 
•any man who occupied the same position for an equal length 
•of time. No ordinary man could safely pass through this 
'Crucial test. The American voters are willing to believe that 
'the man who is wise enough always to be right is wise enough 
to be the Chief Mag^istrate of this great Republic. 

Yea, my countryinen, better even than his unerring com- 
mon sense, is his rugged and unyielding honesty. In his per- 
son he unites the highest qualities of an ideal candidate. He 
is so patriotic that he has always put love of country above 
the love of self. He is so honest that no tainted dollar ever 
touched his hand. He is so firm that a legion of his country's 
■enemies could not drive him from his post of duty. The 
momination of Mr. Bland will proclaim to all the millions 
who are proud to own their allegiance to Democracy that the 
public good is again to be exalted above selfishness and private 
greed. It will assure the doubters, it will recall the Demo- 
cratic wanderers, it will inspire the masses with hopeful cour- 
age. Nominate him, and in every home from the mountains 
to the sea, in palace and cabin, it will be told how a great and 
successful party has crowned a private citizen w^ith its highest 
honor because he always has been true to his own convictions 
and loyal to the best interests of his countrymen. 

Fellow Democrats, whether your choice shall be Bland or 
Boies, Matthews or McLean, Blackburn or Bryan, the 



Democratic National Convention. 298 

imperial commonwealth of Texas, with her more than 100,000 
will take her place at the head of your victorious column. 

When the Secretary called Utah, the chairman of that 
delegation said: Utah desires to be heard through her dis- 
tinguished son, Hon. J. L. Rawlins. 

Mr. Richardson having resumed the Chair said: I have 
the pleasure to present to the Convention Hon. J. L. Rawlins. 

Mr. Rawlins : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : In the few remarks v^hich I shall inake I de- 
spair of attaining to that high level of exact truth and elo- 
quence which has characterized all that has been said previously 
in respect to candidates before this Convention. Our surest 
justification of the hope of success is to deserve it. The Dem- 
ocratic party, as old as the Nation, as broad as the continent, 
and as free as the air, since the election of Thomas Jeffer- 
son as President has never failed to command the support of 
the majority of the people when it has been true to its faith 
and selected for its candidates those who, under all circum- 
stances, have faithfully maintained its doctrines. We inust 
maintain self-respect, exalt our principles, and in gratitude 
cherish and honor those w4iose unselfish devotion to our cause 
has brought us so near to the goal of victory. In this connec- 
tion, at this time, there is one name which is pre-eininent. 
His ancestors were of Virginia — the inother of Presidents. 
The "old Kentucky home" consecrated and blessed the spot 
where he was born. Away off in California he is loved. He 
resided in Nevada and held office in Utah; the newest and 
brightest star placed upon the flag delights to shine for him. 
His name is a household word in Colorado ; his home is in 
the great State of Missouri, but he dwells everyv^'here in the 
hearts of the people. Has he not been brave, and honest, and 
true for twenty years without hope of reward.^ He has un- 
selfishly consecrated his life to the cause which is now pie- 
dominant. With the persistence and faith of the Christian 
in the story of " Pilgrim's Progress" his pursuit of the cause, 
in spite of obstacles, has been unfaltering. This cause is no\v 
the paramount issue. He has guarded and nurtured it with 
the loving devotion a mother w^ould bestow in the care of her 



294 Official Proceedings of the 

child. When others have faltered he has been steadfast; 
when many have been lured aw^ay by the blandishments of 
wealth and power, he has never swerved ; when all around 
him others have yielded to the seduction of place and patron- 
age, he has stood erect, maintained his honor and spurned 
their offers. 

Conscious of the dignity and justice of the cause, while 
the shafts of contumely, derision and insult ^vere being hurled 
against his intelligence and manhood, by a debauched but 
powerful press, in calmness and dignity, and with unflinching 
courage he stood by his convictions until he commanded the 
eulogy and respect of his most virulent adversaries. He is 
capable. He has never courted popularity. His is not 
the career of the weather-cock, or the time-fly. His life 
is an open book. He has spoken honestly, clearly, and with 
the wisdom of foresight of a statesman upon all the great 
questions which concerned our country's welfare. As the 
cause is greater than the man you cannot ig^nore or pass this 
man by without exemplifying your ingratitude, raising doubts 
as to your sincerity and imperiling the success of our cause. 
You cannot, you dare not do it. In his person the hopes of 
the people are centered. He is the incarnation of their con- 
victions, the personification of their purpose. In him their 
assurance against betrayal is supreme ; with their trust com- 
mitted to his care by the victory to be achieved in November, 
in spite of all the machinations of Moloch, their purpose they 
know will be by him faithfully executed. Utah seconds the 
nomination of Richard P. Bland. 

The State of Vermont had no candidate to present. 
When Virginia was called Colonel W. A. Jones of that del- 
egation said: 

The Democrats of Virginia, in Convention assembled, re- 
quested their delegates to present the name of Hon. John W. 
Daniel ; but at his earnest request and insistance Virginia 
will not present his name as a candidate to this Convention. 

Washington seconded the nomination of Bland, of Mis- 
souri, through the Chairman of the delegation and promised 
him the electoral vote in November. 



Democratic National Convention. 295 

When West Virginia was called the Chair presented to 
the Convention Hon. J. W. St. Clair, who addressed the 
Convention as follows: 

Mr. St. Clair : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the 
Convention : I recognize on behalf of our delegation that 
you have presented to you names of many distinguished Dem- 
ocrats to-night. We honor Bland, we venerate Boies, we 
love Matthews, w^e love McLean ; we love all Democrats, 
but for purposes of this contest grander than them all is 
Joseph S. C. Blackburn, of the State of Kentucky. Gen- 
tlemen, who sounded the tocsin for free silver in this contest? 
Joe Blackburn. Gentlemen, this battle was not begun 
until tne State of Kentucky held her Convention on the 5th 
day of last June. The people of this land watched that brave 
soldier, the nominee of the Democratic party for the Senate 
of the United States in the State of Kentucky fighting against 
odds, bolters, and every class of people who could concentrate 
their power and forces against him. After he went down 
before the Legislature the people stood by him on the 5th of 
June and gave him the flag of free silver to bear to this Con- 
vention. You say, gentlemen, that he has been a Confederate 
soldier. We, the people of the South, have paid our share of 
taxes. We have stood by the principles of our country and 
have helped to pay your pensions, and now let that issue be 
buried and give us a Southern candidate once more. Gentle- 
men, when the Democracy of the country gave to it a leader, 
you found in every instance not only a brave and courageous 
man, but a statesman as eminent as this continent has ever 
produced, and "Joe" Blackburn walks in his footsteps. 
You can make no mistake in giving Blackburn to our coun- 
try and making him standard bearer of the Democratic party 
in 1896. 

The Secretary resumed the calling of the roll of States. 
The State of Wisconsin being called, General Edward S. 
Bragg said: Wisconsin cannot participate in nominating 
a Democrat to stand upon the platform. 

Hon. James Malone, of Wisconsin, said : I arise to second 
the nomination of Senator Blackburn and the delegation 



296 Official Proceedings of the 

from Wisconsin will express its views through Mr. E. J. 

DOCKERY. 

Mr. DocKERY : Gentlemen of the Convention : The un- 
democratic unit rule has throttled my vote in this great Con- 
vention. Whoever may be nominated by this Convention 
will receive, they tell us, no votes at the hands of those who 
represent the State of Wisconsin here. But I want to say to 
this Convention and through them to the people of this great 
Nation, that Wisconsin in November will cast her electoral 
votes for the nominee of this Convention. Gentlemen, the 
hour is late and I will not detain you by any extended speech. 
All I ask, gentlemen, at the hands of this Convention, is that 
it nominate the idol of this Convention, William J. Bryan, 
of Nebraska, and we will elect him. 

General Bragg, of Wisconsin, mounted his chair and said : 
We will, with your permission, search for another straggler 
and get another candidate for this Convention. 

The Secretary then proceeded with the reading of the 
roll and Wyoming, Alaska, Louisiana, District of Colum- 
bia, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Indian Territory, announced 
that they had no candidates to present. 

Upon the conclusion of the roll call Senator Jones, of 
Arkansas, moved that the Convention adjourn until lO 
o'clock to-morrow morning. 

A number of voices were raised in a demand that i 2 
o'clock be substituted for lO. The Chair put the motion 
which was adopted and the Convention adjourned to July 
lo, 1896, at 10 o'clock A. M. 



Democratic National Convention. 29T 



fourth; day. 



MORNING SESSION. 



Chicago, III., July lo, 1896. 

The Convention was called to order by the Chairman,. 
Senator White, at i i o'clock A. m., in the following words: 

Gentlemen, come to order. Prayer ^vill be offered by Rev. 
Dr. Greene. 

PRAYER. 

Almighty God, unto vv^hom all hearts are open, all desires 
known, and froni whom no secrets are hidden, cleanse our 
hearts by the inspiration of Thy holy spirit, that we may per- 
fectly love Thee and do those things that are pure and accept- 
able in Thy sight. As Thou hast given us another day, give 
us grace for its duties, and guide our minds, which are frail 
and feeble, by the infinite wisdom of Thy grace, that we may 
be kept from evil and from sin and be guided in the paths of 
righteousness. 

We pray again for Thy blessing upon this representative 
assembly of the people of these United States. For the great 
concern of their duty, guide Thou them aright. Overrule 
their mistakes for good. Pardon, we pray Thee, all that 
Thou may find amiss in what is done, and whatever we may 
think and whatever we may be, over and above us may Thy 
kingdom come. May human life be made better and purer, 
and may the gospel of Thy blessed Son, our Savior, rule 
'throughout all the world. We pray for our land and nation. 
Prosper us with plenty and with peace. Rule Thou over us, 
for Thou art mighty ; and grant that that righteousness 
which exaJteth a people may be ours, and that we may be 



29S Official Proceedings of the 

free from that sin which is a reproach to any nation. And 
so unto Thee, Father, Son and Holy Ghost, we praise forever 
more. Amen. 

At the conchision of the prayer, the Chair said : The 
Chair requests gentlemen upon the floor and in the galleries 
to be as quiet as possible. Instead of making a vast amount 
•of disturbance, try to hypnotize your neij^^hbors into silence. 

The Chair then recognized Hon. William F. Harrit^^, 
of Pennsylvania. 

Mr. Harrity : I desire to say, Mr. Chairman, that in 
obedience to the instructions given by the Democratic State 
Convention of Pennsylvania, the Pennsylvania delegation 
presents the name of Hon. Robert E. Pattison, of Pennsyl- 
vania, as a candidate for the Presidency. 

The Chair inquired if there were any other nominations. 
Mr. Mattingly, of the District of Columbia, secured rec- 
ognition, and said: 

" Last evening, before adjournment, the roll call was con- 
cluded rather unceremoniously. On behalf of the District of 
Columbia, 1 desire to second the nomination of the peerless 
champion of free silver, that great Democrat of Ohio and 
friend of the farmer and laboring man, John R. McLean." 

Mr. Miller, of Oregon, then said : On behalf of the dele- 
gation of Oregon, we desire to present to this Convention the 
name of ex-Governor Sylvester Pennoyer for President of 
the United States. 

** The Chair : Are there any other nominations ? There 
being no response I wnll declare nominations for President 
closed, and order the Secretary to call the roll of States. 

Mr. Smith, of Ohio : On behalf of the Ohio delegation I 
wish to say that we have just received the news of the sudden 
and unexpected death of that eloquent Democrat, Frank H. 
HuRD, of Ohio, and we ask the Convention to join wnth us in 
our sorrow for the loss of our friend and our Democratic 
associate. 



Democratic National Convention. 299 

The Chair : Does the gentleman from Ohio make any 
motion ? 

Mr. Smith : I do not think it is a matter on which a 
motion should be made. 

The Chair : The announcement is all that is desired at 
this time. Call the roll. 

At this point Mr. Richardson was called to the Chair. 

The Clerk began by calling Alabama, the first State on 
the roll. Tennett Lomax, chairman of the delegation, 
said : 

Mr. Chairman, there are a number of delegates from Ala- 
bama who desire to express their preferences in this vote. 
They are John B. Knox, H. B. Foster, S. J. Carpenter, 
J. H. MiNGE and D, R. Burgess. They desire to cast their 
votes for that splendid type of New England Democracy, ex- 
Governor Russell, of Massachusetts, but under the operation 
of the unit rule I cast the twenty-two votes of Alabama for 
Horace Boies, of Iowa. 

Arkansas being called, sixteen votes were cast for 
Bland. 

California being challenged, the roll of delegates was 
called with the following result: Blackburn, 9; Matthews, 
2; Bryan, 4; Boies, 2; Campbell, i. 

Colorado was passed at the request of its delegation. 

When Connecticut was called ex-.Governor Waller, of 
that State, made the following announcement: 

Mr. Waller : Connecticut has twelve votes. Two of 
those twelve it casts for Governor Russell, of Massachusetts. 

Delaware being called, the chairman of the delegation 
said: 

Delaware casts three votes for Robert E. Pattison, of 
Pennsylvania, one for William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, two 
votes are not cast and. those delegates have no desire to express 
as to the candidates of this Convention. 



300 Official Proceedings of the 

Florida gave two votes to Bland and Matthews and 
one each to Boies, Bryan, Blackburn and Pattison. 

Georgia cast twenty-six votes for Bryan. 

Idaho six for Bland. 

IlHnois forty-six votes for Bland. 

Iowa twenty-six votes to Horace Boies. 

Indiana recorded her vote as follows: Thirty votes for 
her great and distinguished Governor, Claude Matthews. 

Kansas twenty votes for Bland. 

When Kentucky was called the chairman of the delega- 
tion announced that there were two gold men in her dele- 
gation, Mr. Phelps and Mr. Haldeman, but under the 
unit rule Kentucky's twenty-six votes were cast for Joe 
Blackburn, of Kentucky. 

Chairman Blanchard, of the Louisiana delegation : As 
the unit rule prevails in this state, its sixteen votes are for 
Bryan. I am requested to state that Mr. Marston expresses 
his personal preference for Bland. 

Mr. Marston (holding in his hand a silver dollar) : I 
only wish to say, sir, that the reason my preferences are given 
to Richard P. Bland is because I hold a talisman in my hand 
which will carry us to victory in November. 

Maine cast its vote, Bland, 2; Bryan, 2; Pattison, 5; 
not voting 3. 

Maryland: Bryan, 4; Pattison, ii ; not voting, i. 

When Massachusetts was reached Delegate Hamilton, 
of that State said: 

Mr. Hamilton : In the absence of the Chairman and the 
vice-Chairman of our delegation, the majority of the delega- 
tion desire that Massachusetts shall be passed for the present. 

Mr. O'SuLLivAN, a delegate from the same State, said: 

Mr. O'SuLLivAN : In the absence of the gold leaders of 
this delegation we demand the call of the roll. They are away 
because they intend to stay away. 



Democratic National Convention. 301 

The Chair : The Chair will state that speeches are not 

in order in the midst of a roll call. Let us remember 

this, gentlemen. Massachusetts will be passed for the 
present. 

When Michigan was called the Chairman of the delega- 
tion announced nine votes for Bryan, four for Boies, five 
for Bland and ten not voting. Mr. Stevenson challenged 
the vote, and the delegation was polled with the following 
result: Bland, 4; Boies, 5; Bryan, 9; not voting, 10. 

Mr. Stevenson; I would like to know how Mr. Powers 
in the Third District is recorded. 

The Secretary informed him that Mr. Powers voted for 
Bland. 

Mr. Stevenson. He is not present, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. Hummer, of Michigan : His alternate is here. 

Mr. Stevenson : His alternate is not here. Mr. Chester 
is his alternate and Mr. Knight is the alternate for the other 
delegate, and I challenge the right of an alternate for another 
delegate to vote for Mr. Powers. 

The Chair : That is a question of fact. If the delega- 
tion cannot tell what the fact is the Chair certainly cannot. 

Mr. Hummer : The fact is Mr. Knight is here and has 
been acting all the time as Mr. Powers' proxy. 

The Chair : Has any objection been made heretofore by 
any member of the delegation to his voting.? 

Mr. Hummer : No. 

The Chair: Then the vote will stand. 

Mr. Stevenson : The record shows that Mr. Chester is 
the alternate for Mr. Powers. 

Mr. Hummer : The record shows no such thing. 

The Chair : The gentlemen will resume their seats. The 
Chair has ruled. 



802 Official Proceedings of the 

The roll of the States continued as follows: 

Minnesota: Boies, 4; Bryan, 2; Blackburn, i; Pat- 
TisoN, 2; Stevenson, i. Ei^ht not voting. 

Mississippi: Boies, 18. 

Missouri: Bland, 34. 

Montana: Bland, 4; Blackburn, 2. 

Nebraska: Bryan, 16. 

Nevada: Matthews, 3; McLean, 3. 

When New Hampshire was reached Mr. Doyle an- 
nounced the vote as follows: One vote for Pattison, and 
seven declining to vote. 

When New Jersey was reached the Chairman of that 
delegation announced that it declined to cast its vote. 

The Chair : Gentlemen will abstain from any manifes- 
tations of approval or disapproval of the votes in the future. 

When New York was reached ex-Governor Flower 
said: 

Mr. Flower : In view of the platform adopted by this 
Convention and of its action and proceedings I am instructed 
by the delegation from the State of New York to say that we 
decline to further participate in the selection of candidates 
for President and Vice-President, and therefore we decline to 
vote. 

When North Carolina was called the Chairman said: 

In view^ of the platform adopted by this Convention and 
the proceedings going before it, I am requested by the dele- 
gates of North Carolina to cast twenty-two votes for William 
J. Bryan. 

The vote of Ohio was challenged and the Secretary 
called the roll of delegates. John R. McLean, the first 
on the list was called, and h'is alternate voted as follows: 

In the absence of Mr. McLean, I assume the duties of 
delegate and cast my vote for John R. McLean. 

The roll call proceeded, John C. Patterson was called, 
and in his absence the Chairman of the delegation said: 



Democratic National Convention. 308 

Mr. Patterson directed me to cast his vote for John R. 
McLean. 

Mr. HoLDEN : I object to this. Let his alternate cast his 
vote. 

The Chair : If the Chairman of the delegation states 
that he has authority to cast the vote of the delegate the 
Chair will accept his statement. 

The vote of Ohio was announced as follows: 

Absent, 2; Bland, i; McLean, 40; Bryan, i; Patti- 
SON, I. The Chair then said that under the unit rule the 
46 votes would be cast for McLean. 

Oregon: Pennoyer, 8. 

Pennsylvania: Pattison, 64. 

Rhode Island: Pattison, 6; 2 not voting. 

South Carolina: Tillman, 17; not voting, i. 

This announcement having been received with hisses,. 
Mr. Powers, of Utah, said: 

Mr. Powers : I rise to a question of privilege ; my ques- 
tion is whether, when delegates sitting here in convention 
permit guests to occupy the galleries, they are to be allowed 
to hiss when any Democrat is nominated or voted for in a 
National Convention, or whether this Convention will require 
them to conduct themselves as ladies and gentlemen, and 
whether they are here through our courtesy or not. 

The Chair: That is a very pertinent inquiry. 

In the delegation of Rhode Island two delegates declined 
to vote. 

South Carolina cast her seventeen votes for Benjamin 
R. Tillman. 

When Tennessee was reached the Chairman of that 
delegation announced that under the unit rule he was in- 
structed to cast the twenty-four votes of that State for 
Bland. 

Mr. Boyd : Mr. Chairman, I demand a poll of the vote 
of the delegation from Tennessee, 



804 Official Proceedings of the 

The Chair : Does the gentleman from Tennessee deny 
that a majority of the delegation are for the candidate for 
whom the votes are cast? 

Mr. Boyd : He does. 

Mr. Bate : It is, perhaps, necessary for me to state that 
under the unit rule I was instructed to cast twenty-four votes 
for Air. Bland, but I will state that of this vote fourteen are 
for Bland and ten for Boies, but under the instructions of 
the delegation twenty-four votes are cast for Bland. 

The Chair : The Chair will state that, it having been 
■denied that a majority of the delegates are for the candidate 
named, the roll must be called regardless of the opinion of its 
Chairman. 

Senator Bate : I desire it to be called. 

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll of Tennessee. 
The result of the vote was announced as follows: 
Bland, i6; Boies, 5; Bryan, 3. 

The Chair : The Chair suggests that when gentleman 
■demand a roll call upon a specific statement that a wrong has 
been done in the announcement they should advise themselves 
accurately. Go on with the roll. call. 

Texas: Bland, 30. 
Utah: Bland, 6. 

Vermont: Bryan, 4; not voting, 4. 
Virginia: Blackburn, 24. 
West Virginia: Blackburn, 12. 

When W^ashington was called the Chairman of the dele- 
gation said: 

There are in this delegation five silver men and three 
gold standard men. The State of Washington desires to cast 
her vote for a man who can stand upon the platform and win 
upon the platform. She therefore casts one vote for William 
J. Bryan and seven votes for Richard P. Bland. 

When Wisconsin was called General Bragg was recog- 
nized and said: 



Democratic National Convention, 305 

General Bragg : Wisconsin has not directed her delegates 
how and when to vote. Therefore, she declines at present to 
vote. 

Mr. HoLDGATE : The delegation of the State of Wiscon- 
sin not having been polled, and being instructed to vote as a 
unit when the vote has been polled, I ask for a calling of the 
roll. ' 

The Chair : Is there any denial that there is a unit rule 
in Wisconsin, General Bragg? 

General Bragg : I have the rule in my hand, and there 
are thirty-five copies of it in the credentials from our State. 
It is a part of the agreement by which we look our seats upon 
the floor. We have precocious children in our State and the 
instruction was given to keep them from — 

General Bragg was interrupted by cries of " Call the 
roll," many of them coming from Virginia and West Vir- 
ginia. When quiet reigned sufficiently he continued: 

General Bragg : The gentlemen from West Virginia or 
from old Virginia cannot direct the Democracy of Wisconsin 
how they shall act or how they shall vote. 

Mr. HoLDGATE, of Wisconsin, was then recognized by 
the Chairman and said: 

Mr. HoLDGATE : I have the directions, the original, certi- 
fied, right here, wherein it is said " We hereby direct the 
delegates from Wisconsin to the National Democratic Con- 
vention to be held at Chicago on July 7 next to vote as a unit 
on all subjects and candidates when and as a majority of the 
delegation may direct." We are directed to vote as a unit 
when we are polled. 

General Bragg : The Wisconsin delegation upon its meet- 
ing yesterday, voted twenty votes to four to sustain and con- 
form to the instructions of its State, and to make up that 
four the gentleman who challenged the. count was counted 
as one. 

The delegation roll was then ordered called. When. 
General Bragg's name was called he said: 

20 



806 Official Proceedings of the 

General Bragg : I decline, to vote, and I am instructed 
by twenty of our delegation to cast their votes as I cast mine. 

The Secretary then called the name of William F.Vilas, 
who said: 

Mr. Vilas : Mr. Chairman, the delegation from Wiscon- 
sin was instructed to vote as a unit when the majority of the 
delegation directeH. I have, as one, voted to direct the Chair- 
man to withhold the vote of Wisconsin. 

Mr. Vilas's name was again called, in answer to which 
he said: 

Mr. Vilas : I decline to vote. 

The name of James D. Flanders was then called. He 
said: 

Mr. Flanders : Mr. Chairman, in accordance with the 
instruction of our State Convention, instructing us to vote 
when and as directed by the majority of the delegation, and 
having been instructed by the majority of that delegation not 
to vote, I decline to cast my vote for a candidate for President 
upon this platform. 

The Secretary then called the name of James J. Hogan, 
who said: 

Mr. Hogan : Under the instruction, I decline to vote. 

George M. McKee also stated that he declined to vote. 
Under instructions Thomas M. Kearney said he respect- 
fully declined. There was no response to the call of James 
E. Malone. When William H. Rogers was called, 
General Bragg arose, and said: 

General Bragg : He declines to vote, and so instructed me. 

Dr. Hermann Gasser also declined. In response to 
his name Dr. W. A. Synon said: 

Dr. Synon : I place a different construction on the 
instructions, and I vote for W. J. Bryan. 



Democratic National Convention. 307 

William Bergenthal, M. C. Meade, Dr. Henry 
Blank, H. P. Hamilton, John J. Wood, Jr., declined to 
vote. When Robert Lees' name was called General 
Bragg said he was instructed on behalf of Mr. Lees to 
decline to vote. A. C. Larson voted for Bryan. John L. 
Brennan and John Wattawa both declined to vote. E. J. 
DocKERY and Amos Holgate voted for Bryan. R. J. 
Shields and W. F. McNally both declined to vote. 

As soon as the Secretary had completed the polling of 
the delegation from Wisconsin the Chair recognized Senator 
Money, of Mississippi, w^ho said: 

Senator Money : I make this point of order, that when a 
delegration is instructed to vote as a unit, and any number of 
these gentlemen decline to vote, they cannot stifle the voice of 
a delegate who does desire to vote. 

The Chair : For information, the Chairman will have 
read the instruction of the Wisconsin delegation. 

The Secretary read the instruction referred to, which is 
as follows: 

We hereby direct the delegates from Wisconsin to the 
Democratic National Convention, to be held in Chicago, July 
7, next, to vote as a unit on all subjects and candidates when 
and as a majority of the delegation may direct. 

The Chair then recognized General Bragg, who stood 
upon a chair in the Ohio delegation, and said: 

General Bragg : I make a point of order, Mr. Chairman, 
on that vote. 

Mr. Smith, of Ohio : He does not represent Ohio. 

Ex-Governor Hogg invited General Bragg to speak 
from the Texas delegation, and helped him upon a chair. 

General Bragg : I niake the point of order that the vote 
of Wisconsin, under its instructions, must be entered as de- 
clining to vote. The instruction reads : " To vote as a unit 



808 Official Proceedings of the 

on all subjects and candidates when and as a majority of the 
delegation may direct." There are but four votes cast in our 
delegation out of twenty-four here, contrary to the wish of the 
majority, and unless this Convention seeks to make that four a 
majority of twenty-four they cannot bind the twenty nor dis- 
grace our State by forcing it to vote the way those gentlemen, 
wish. 

Mr. DocKERY, of Wisconsin, speaking from the plat- 
form, said: 

Mr. DocKERY : Gentlemen of the Convention ; I am one 
of the men who are standing before this Convention asking 
for the privilege of casting a vote. The gentleman who 
stands here and acts as the spokesman for Wisconsin (General 
Bragg) claims the privilege of sitting in this great Conven- 
tion and refusing to cast any vote upon any subject. We ask 
that those of us who are ready and willing to cast our vote be 
permitted to vote and that they be received. 

The resolution which was passed by the Convention in the 
State of Wisconsin gave to those gentlemen the right to say 
that a majority of that Convention should control the votes of 
the delegates here, but there are no words in that resolution 
which say that they forbid us to vote if we desire. Four of us 
stand here and cast our votes in -harmony Avith this Conven- 
tion, and being the only votes that are cast here, w^e claim 
that we, and we alone, are the members of that delegation 
who should be heard ; and if the great State of Wisconsin 
were able to give her voice to-day as to what her sentiments 
are, she would be for silver. If we cannot express our feelings 
and beliefs to-day, I want to say to you, gentlemen, as I said 
last night, we will give it to you in November. We appeal 
to this Convention, and we ask that those gentlemen either 
vote or allow us to vote. 

Mr. FiNLEY, of Ohio, rose to a point of order, and asked 
to have re-read the resolution of the Wisconsin Convention 
instructing its delegates. The Secretary read the resolu- 
tion, and Mr. Finley said: 

Mr. Finley : My point of order is that the delegation 



Democratic National Convention. 809 

■may direct a vote, but by abstaining from voting it is not 
directing a vote, and that therefore the gentleman (Mr. 
Dockery) has the right to vote. 

Mr. McCoNNELL, of Tennessee : I move you, sir, that 
the delegates present and voting in any delegation in this 
Convention shall be entitled to cast — 

The Chairman (interrupting) : That is out of order; 
out of order. There is a point of order pending before the 
house which has not been decided. 

Mr. Money, of Mississippi : I ask the Chair if he has 
ruled upon the point of order that I made a while ago, or if 
he is ready to do so ? 

The Chair : The Chair is ready to rule upon this ques- 
tion. The point raised by the delegation from Wisconsin is 
that its Convention directed the delegation from Wisconsin to 
vote as a unit on all subjects and candidates as a majority of 
the delegation may direct. That is the point of order. The 
Chair rules that this instruction is not an instruction to 
abstain from voting, but to regulate the voting of the delega- 
tion. The Chair further rules that when the roll is called a 
delegate absent shall be recorded as absent, and if a minority 
of the delegation vote, that their votes shall be individually 
recorded, but that the minority cannot cast the entire vote of 
the delegation. The vote of Wisconsin will be announced. 

The Secretary announced the vote as follows: Declin- 
ing to vote, 19; W. J. Bryan, 4; Blackburn, i. 

The call of the States was proceeded with as follows: 

Wyoming: Pattison, 5. * 

Alaska: Bland, 6. 

Arizona: Bland, 6. 

District of Columbia: Boies, i; McLean, 5. 

New Mexico: Bland, 6. 

Oklahoma: Bland, 6. 

Indian Territory: Bland, 6. 

The Chair then directed that those States which had 
been omitted should be called, which was done. Califor- 
nia was first called, and the missing votes were recorded. 



310 Official Proceedings of the 

Colorado was then called and cast her eight votes for 
Henry M. Teller. 

The vote of Massachusetts was recorded as follows: 
Pattison, 3; Stevenson, 5; Bland, 2; Hill, i; Bryan, i; 
those absent and declining to vote, 18. 

On motion of George B. Hummer, of Michigan, the 
name of John B. Shipman was called and he cast his vote 
for Bryan. 

The Chair recognized a delegate from Minnesota, who 
stated that two members of the delegation, who had come 
in since the roll call, desired to have their votes recorded. 

The Chair : Hereafter, if there should be another roll 
call, the Chair will not go back, unless it be where a State 
was passed by consent; and, unless the entire delegation of a 
State desires to change its vote, there will not be undivided 
changes made during the counting of the ballot, nor until 
after the first announcement is made. The Secretary will 
foot the returns, and until that is done no further business 
will be transacted. 

The following is the result of the first ballot as finally 
corrected : 



Democratic National Convention. 



311 



first ballot. 



STATES. 


< a 

H H 
O O 

H> 

22 
16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

6 

8 

20 

72 

22 

6 

46 

8 

64 

8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 
24 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 

P80 


z 
< 

>< 

4 

"i 

1 

26 

ie 

2 
4 
1 

9 

2 

18 

ie 

22 

'6 
'4 

"i 

'4 

137 


Q 
Z 

< 

i6 

'2 

'6 
48 

26 

'2 

*2 
4 

34 
4 

24 

30 

6 

'7 

'6 
6 

'6 


a 

2Q 

22 

'2 

'1 

26 

'5 
4 

'6 

i 


73 

X 
H 
W 
< 

'2 

'2 

30 

■ ■ 

37 


z 
< 



"3 

■ 

46 

'5 
54 


z 



X 
< 

3 
1 

'5 
11 

3 

*2 

i 

64 
6 

*i 

Q7 


z 

B 

ca 



< 

03 
"9 

26 

' 

'2 

24 

i2 
1 
6 

82 


z 



t/3 

z 
>■ 

H 

'5 

6 


u 

s 

h 
'8 

8 


■Si 

'2 

9 


z 
< 

►J 
h 

17 


s 

'i 
1 


1 >• 
c 
z 
z 

• • 

8 


i 

1 


d 
z 




Alabama 




Arkansas 




California 




Colorado , 




Connecticut 


10 


Delaware - 


2 


Florida 




Georgia 




Idaho ■ 

Illinois 

Indiana -. 




Iowa 




Kansas 




Kentucky 




Louisiana 




Maine 


3 


Maryland 

Massachusetts 


1 

18 


Michigan 


10 


Minnesota 


8 


Mississippi 




Missouri 




Montana 




Nebraska 

Nevada 




New Hampshire 


7 


New Jersey 


20 


New York 


72 


North Carolina 




North Dakota 

Ohio. 




Oregon 




Pennsylvania 




Rhode Island 

South Carolina 

South Dakota 


2 
1 
1 


Tennessee 




Texas 




Utah 




\ ermont 


4 


Virginia 

Washington 




West Virginia 




Wisconsin 

Wyoming 


19 


Alaska 

Arizona 




District of Columbia 

Oklahoma 




Indian Territory 

New Mexico 


6 .. 
6 .. 

235 671 




Totals 


178 























812 Official Proceedings of the J 

! 
1 

The Secretary announced the result of the first ballot 

as follows: 1 

Bland 235 ' : 

Boies my j 

Matthews . 37 .<^ ' 

McLean 54 ^-^ ! 

Bryan 187 *-* \ 

Blackburn '. 82 /* \ 

Pattison 97 -^ j 

Pennoyer 8 / ' 

Campbell 1 i 

Russell 2 ; 

Stevenson 6 i 

Tillman 17 -^ ' ,! 

Hill 1 i 

Teller 8 

iVbsent or not votingf 178 \ 

i 

The Chair : The Secretary will call the roll of the J 

States for the second ballot. 

The Secretary then called the roll of the States. | 

Alabama the first State on the roll was called, and Mr. ' 

Lane of that delegation said: ■ 

Mr. Lane : In the poll of the Alabama delegation there \ 
was one absent, not voting. There were six for Bryan, fif- 
teen votes for " Silver Dick " Bland of Missouri and I cast \ 
the twenty-two votes of Alabama for Richard P. Bland. i 

Arkansas: Bland, i6. i 

California having been reached the vote of the delegates ] 
was challenged and the polling resulted as follows: Black- 
burn, 5; Bryan, /; Bland, 2; Boies, i; Matthews, 2; - ; 

McLean, i. \ 

When Maine was reached a delegate from that com- | 
monwealth desired to have the names of the delegates polled. 

The Chair : Does the gfentleman claim that the vote of J 

the delegation from that State has not been correctly \ 

announced? ] 



Democratic National Convention. 313 

The Delegate : I do not. 

The Chair : The vote having been correctly announced 
the Chair declines to have any call of the roll. 

When Massachusetts was reached Hon. John W. Cor- 
coran said: 

Mr. Corcoran : Mr. Chairman, I desire to have the list 
of delegates voting on the former ballot corrected. We cast 
now five votes for Stevenson as we did on the first ballot ; 
three for Pattison, two votes for Bland, one for Hill, one 
for Bryan and one for Matthe^vs, seventeen not voting. 

When New Jersey was called Mr. McDermott, of that 
State, said: 

Mr. McDermott : New Jersey desires to have two of her 
votes cast for Pattison. 

The Secretary announced the vote as " two for Bryan," 
upon which Mr. McDermott said: — 

Mr. McDermott : You can't come that on us. It was 
not two votes for Bryan, but two votes for Pattison. 

The Secretary announced the vote as given and passed 
on to New York, which State declined to vote. 

Under the operation of the unit law the whole vote of 
Ohio was cast for John R. McLean, but in explanation 
Mr. Long, Chairman of that delegation, stated that there 
was one vote for Bland, two for Pattison, seven for 
Bryan and three not voting. 

Pennsylvania recorded her vote through Mr. Harrity, 
Chairman of the Pennsylvania Delgation, as "sixty-four 
votes for Pattison." 

Tennessee was passed. 

The Secretary then called Virginia and the Chairman of 
the delegation said: 

I am requested to state that upon the poll there were six 
votes for Bryan, but under the operation of the unit rule the 
twenty-four votes are cast for Bland. 



814 Official Proceedings of the 

When Wisconsin was called General Bragg said under 
instructions nineteen of the delegates declined to vote. 

Mr. Malone asked that the roll be called. 

The Chair : Under the ruling on the previous vote, four 
votes being cast for Mr. Bryan aiid one for Mr. Blackburn, 
if there is no objection the vote ^vill be so entered. 

The vote was then announced as four for Bryan, one 
for Blackburn and nineteen not voting. 

When Arizona was called her chairman announced that 
she cast five votes for Bland and one for Bryan, but un- 
der the unit rule the six votes would be cast for Bland. 

At the conclusion of the list the Chair announced that 
the Clerk would call the States that had been passed. Min- 
nesota was the first called. The Chair then stated that as 
the Chairman of the Minnesota delegation was unable to 
recapitulate the vote the Clerk would call the roll of the 
State. This was done, with the following result: Boies, 
2; Blackburn, 2; Pattison, i; Bryan, 4; Stevenson, 4; 
not voting, 5. 

When the Secretary called the State of Tennessee, 
which had also been passed, Senator Bate, Chairman of 
the delegation, said: 

Senator Bate : When the naine of Tennessee was called 
her delegates were in consultation. In that consultation the 
delegation decided by a majority vote that her solid vote 
should be cast for Richard P. Bland, of Missouri, and I 
hereby give 24 votes from Tennessee for Richard P. Bland, 
of Missouri. 

The Chairman of the delegation from California here 
arose and said: 

Mr. Chairman, under the instructions from the Califor- 
nia delegation I now desire to poll the vote differently : 14 for 
Bryan ; 1 for Matthews ; 2 for Bland, and 1 for Boies. 

On the second ballot the roll call resulted as follows: 



Democratic National Convention. 315 

Bland 281 

Boies 87 

Matthews 34 

McLean 53 

Blackburn 41 

Pattison 100 

Bryan 197 

Teller 8 

Stevenson 10 

Hill 1 

Pennoyer * ' 8 

Not voting 160 

The following is the ballot as corrected : 



816 



Official Proceedings of the 



SECOND BALLOT. 



STATES. 


< 

H 
O 

H 

22 

16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

6 

8 

20 

72 

22 

6 

46 

8 

64 

8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 

24 

6 

6 

6 

6 

6 

6 

6 

930 


z 
< 

ii 
i 

2 
26 

i6 

2 
4 
1 

28 
4 

18 

ie 

•22 

is 

7 
'4 

i 

"4 

6 
'3 

197 


Q 
< 

22 
16 

2 

1 

*6 
48 

26 

"2 
'2 

34 
6 

24 

30 

6 

24 

7 

'6 
6 
1 
6 
6 
6 

281 


w 


"i 
i 

26 
'2 

'6 

• ■ 

"i 

37 


CO 

W 
X 
h 
H 

<: 

i 

"2 

30 

i 

34 


z 

< 
w 



'6 
46 

"i 

53 


z 



C/5 

H 

H 
< 
P. 

'2 

3 
1 

"5 

11 

3 

"i 

i 

2 

. . 

64 
6 

i 

100 


z 



ca 


< 

26 
'2 

i2 
1 

41 


z 

(/> 
z 

a 
> 
u 

CO 
1 

"5 
'4 

10 


W 

1-1 

w 
H 

'8 
8 


u 
a 
>< 

ci 
z 
z 
w 

PL, 

'8 
8 


i 
1 




z 




Alabama 




Arkansas 




California 




Colorado 

Connecticut 


io 


Delaware 


2 


Florida 




Georgia 




Idaho 




Illinois 




Indiana 




Iowa 




Kansas 

Kentucky 




Louisiana 




Maine 


3 


Maryland 


1 


Massachusetts 


17 


Michigan 




Minnesota 


5 


Mississippi 




Missouri 




Montana 




Nebraska 




Nevada 




New Hampshire 


7 


New Jersey 


18 


New \ ork , 

North Carolina 


72 


North Dakota 

Ohio 




Oregon 




Pennsylvania 




Rhode Island 


2 


South Carolina 




South Dakota 




Tennessee 




Texas 




Utah 




Vermont 


4 


Virginia 




Washington 

West Virginia 




Wisconsin 


19 


Wyoming 




Alaska 




Arizona 








New Mexico 




Oklahoma 




Indian Territory 




Totals 


160 



Democratic National Convention. 817 

At this point of the proceedings E. W. Marston, of 
Louisiana, said: "Mr. Chairman!" 

The Chair. For what purpose does the gentleman 
arise? 

Mr. Marston : I move, sir, that it is the sense of this 
Convention that the majority should rule, and that the two- 
thirds precedent heretofore governing Democratic Conventions 
is a cowardly subterfuge, and should be repealed. 

Mr. Jones, of Arkansas : Mr. Chairman, I rise to a point 
of order. My point is this : That under the rules governing 
this Convention any resolution or motion looking to a change 
of these rules must be referred to the Committee on Rules, 
considered by them and reported back to the Convention for 
its action. 

The Chair : The Chair sustains the point of order. 

Mr. Marston : I appeal from the Chair to this Conven- 
tion, and on that motion I desire to address the Convention on 
the appeal. 

Mr. Marston took the platform to state his point. Be- 
fore he began the Chairman said: 

The Chair: The Chair desires to state the question. 
The gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Marston) on the right 
of the Chair has offered a resolution to the effect that the two- 
thirds rule be abrogated and repealed. 

Mr. Marston : No, no. 

The Chair : Will the gentleman (Mr. Marston) state 
his own motion without debate. 

Mr. Marston : My motion is that it is the sense of this 
Convention that the majority should rule, and that the prece- 
dent established by Democratic Conventions heretofore upon 
the two-thirds rule is a cowardly subterfuge. 

The Chair : The Chair decides that the gentleman 
from Louisiana has not made any motion. In order to be 
entirely fair the Chair will state that the gentleman desires to 
ofTer a resolution repealing the two-thirds rule, as he under- 
stands it./^ 



^818 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. Money, of Mississippi : I move that this motion be 
referred to the Committee on Rules and Order of Business 
without debate. 

The Chair : Tlie gentleman from Arkansas (Mr. Jones) 
has made a point of order, which is pending, and therefore 
the motion of the gentleman would not be in order until the 
point of order is disposed of. 

Mr. Money: Then, under the rules, it is referable only 
to the Committee on Rules without debate. 

Mr. Blanchard : I am directed by the delegates from 
Louisiana to state that the gentleman from Louisiana on the 
stand (Mr. Marston) in making the motion that he did, did 
not do so by the direction of the delegation from Louisiana, 
and I am further requested by the delegation to move to lay 
his motion on the table. 

\ The Chair : The Chair will now decide the question of 
order, which has first to be disposed of. The gentleman from 
Arkansas (Mr. Jones) has made the point of order that this 
motion by the gentleman, from Louisiana (Mr. Marston) 
must first be considered by the Committee on Rules, and the 
Chair sustains the point of order and the Clerk will proceed 
with the call of the roll for a third ballot. 

Mr. Marston : You will hear from me later^^ 

The call of the roll for a third ballot being ordered, the 
Secretary proceeded to call the roll of States. 

When the State of Ohio was called the Chairman of the 
delegation announced that Ohio, under the unit rule, would 
cast 46 votes for McLean, but the preferences had been 
pressed by individual delegates as follows: Not voting, 2; 
Pattison, 2; Bland, i; Bryan, 10. 

When Alabama was reached, Mr. Tennett Lomax said: 

Mr. Lomax: I rise to make a statement in reference to 
the Alabama delegation. Upon the poll of this delegation 
there were two absent and not voting, six voting for Bryan 
and the rest for Bland. Under the unit rule I cast the vote 
of Alabama for Mr. Bland. 

The following is the result of the third ballot: 



Democratic National Convention. 



819 



THIRD BALLOT. 



STATES 


Total 
Bryan 




z 

< 
.J 





is 

a 

I 

H 
H 
< 


z 
< 

w 

u 


z 



C-l 

< 

a. 


z 

D 

a 

•X 


< 


z 



z 

> 
u 

H 
CO 


.J 




h Z 
> 


Alabama.. 


22 
16 
18 

8 
12 

6 


"is 

8 


22 

16 

2 


















Arkansas 


















California 


1 


1 














Colorado 








Connecticut 










2 
3 








10 


Delaware 


1 






....1-.-. 








2 


Florida 


8 5 






3 


1 




Georc^ia 


26 

6 
48 
30 
26 
20 
26 
16 
12 
16 
30 
28 
18 
18 
84 

6 

16 
• 6 

8 
20 
72 
22 

6 
46 

8! 
64| 

8! 
181 

8, 
241 
30 

6 

8 
24! 

8! 
12 
24 

6: 

6i 
6, 
6' 


26 


















Idaho 


6 

48 


















Illinois 


















Indiana 




30 














Iowa 






26 














Kansas 





20 
















Kentucky 


















Louisiana 


16 

2 
5 
1 

28 
9 

18 

"i6 


















Maine 


2 








5 

10 
3 








3 


Maryland 














1 


Massachusetts 


2 










5 




18 


Michis^an 










Minnesota 


1 












2 




6 


Mississippi 

Missouri 












34 
6 


















]Montana 


















Nebraska 


















Nevada 








6 












New Hampshire... 

New Jersey 

New York 










1 

2 








7 


















18 
















72 


North Carolina 


22 




















North Dakota 




6 
















Ohio 








46 
1 












Oregon 


5 


2 
















Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 






64 
6 


























2 


South Carolina 


18 
'"i 

"i 
1 

3 

6 

'"4 


















South Dakota 










1 










Tennessee 


24 

30 

6 
















Texas 


















Utah 


















Vermont 
















4 


"X'irginia 

Washington ...... 


24 

rt 
i 

7 
2 


































West \"irginia 

Wisconsin 


2 










2 
















19 


Wyoming 


















Alaska 


6 
6 

'"'6 
6 
6 


















Arizona 


















District of Columbia 


1 




1 












New Mexico 


6 .. 

6j.... 

6'.... 

1 












Oklahoma 


















Indian Territory... 




































Totals 


930 


219I 


291 


36 


34 


54 


97 


27 


9 


1 


162 



320 Official Proceedings of the ' 

The Secretary announced the result of the third ballot 
as follows: 

Bland 291 

Boies 86 

Matthews 84 

McLean 54 

Bryan 219 

Blackburn 27 

Pattison 97 

Stevenson - 9 

Hill 1 

Absent and not voting 162 

Immediately upon the announcement of this vote the 
Chair directed the Secretary to call the roll for the fourth 
ballot, which was then proceeded with. 

When Wisconsin was reached General Bragg said: 

General Bragg : Mr. Chairman, the State of Wisconsin^ 
by a vote of 19 of its delegates instructed by its State Con- 
vention have directed me to announce to this Convention that 
the 24 votes of Wisconsin are not voting. 

The Chair : The roll-call having been finished, the sec- 
retaries will compute the result. 

Pending the computation the Pennsylvania delegation 
withdrew from the hall for consultation. 

Illinois also withdrew for a like purpose. 

The Secretary announced the result of the fourth ballot 
as follows: 

Bland 241 

Boies 88 

Matthews 86 

McLean 46 

Bryan 280 

Blackburn 27 

Pattison 97 

Stevenson 8 

Hill 1 

Absent or not voting 161 

Whole nurnber of votes cast , 768 

Necessary to a choice 512 

The following is the fourth ballot in detail: 



Democratic National Committee, 



321 



FOURTH ballot. 



states 


►J 

< 

H 
C 


Q 
< 


X 

o 


z 

< 
> 


a 
X 
H 
H 
< 


z 

m 

a 

< 
►J 


z 

o 

(-■ 
< 

a, 


z 
< 

w 

o 


z 

o 

CO 

z 

> 

a 

H 
C/3 


J 
J 

£ 


Z Z 

c ca 
> < 

O O 


Alabama 


22 

16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

6 

8 

20 

72 

22 

6 

46 

8 

64 

8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 
24 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 






22 














Arkansas 


16 

2 


















California 


1 


12 

8 


2 


1 












Colorado 












Connecticut 










2 

3 








10 


Delaware 






1 

5 

26 

6 






2 


Florida 


3 












Georgia 


















Idaho 




















Illinois 


48 


















Indiana 


"26 




30 














Iowa 














Kansas 


20 
















Kentucky 

Louisiana 








26 
















16 

2 

5 

1 

28 

10 

18 














Maine 


2 








5 

10 
3 








8 


Maryland 

Massachusetts 








1 


2 






5 


1 


18 


Michigan 








Minnesota 


1 












2 


_ 


5 


Mississippi 

Missouri 




34 

6 


















Montana 




















Nebraska 




16 

6 
















Nevada 




















New Hampshire... 

New Jersey 

New York 










1 

2 








7 


















18 


















72 


North Carolina 






22 
















North Dakota 




6 
















Ohio 










46 








Oregon 






8 














Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 










64 

6 








• • M 


















2 


South Carolina 






18 

7 














wSouth Dakota. . . . . . 






1 










Tennessee 


24 

30 

6 
















Texas 




















Utah 




















Vermont. 




4 














4 


Virginia 

Washington. 

West Virginia 

Wisconsin 


24 

6 

10 




















2 
1 
5 
6 
























1 
















19 


Wyoming 




















Alaska 


6 
6 

""'6 
6 
6 


















Arizona 




















District of Columbia 




5 


1 


- 












New Mexico. . . . 














Oklahoma 




















Indian Territory. . . 


























27 


97 


46 








Total 


930 


241 


33 


280 


36 


8 


1 


161 



21 



822 Official Proceedings of the 

/ '' 

The Chair : The proceedings of the Convention have 
reached a stage when it is necessary for the Chairman to 
announce his construction of the rule with reference to the two- 
thirds vote. A careful examination of the records heretofore 
made leaves open to the Chair but one decision. 

The last Democratic Convention adopted rules which we 
have re-enacted here. Among others they adopted the rules 
of the last Convention. On page 29 of the official record of 
the last Convention I find a reference to the antecedent rule 
which has stood upon this record without objection ever since. 

It was adopted in the Ohio Convention of 1852, and in so 
far as is pertinent here it is as follows : that two-thirds of the 
whole number of votes given shall be necessary for a nomina- 
tion for President or Vice-President. 

The rules of the House of Representatives, which have 
-also been adopted, are clear and positive that when a quorum 
is ascertained, that the rule which I am now about to enforce 
must be held the true and proper rule of conduct and there- 
fore, in the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds of the vote given 
-will nominate a candidate for President and Vice-President of 
the United States. ^ 

The Chair : The Secretary will again call the roll. 

Mr. Marston, of Louisiana : I appeal from the Chair to 
the Convention. 

The Chair : You can appeal later, when the result is 
announced. 

The Secretary then called the roll of States. 
When Kentucky was called, Hon. Ollie James, the 
Chairman of its delegation, said: 

Mr. James : Mr. Chairman : While Kentucky loves her 
great Democrat and would be glad to see him President of the 
United States, yet because he was in the Confederate army 
they seem not to want him. Therefore we take great pleas- 
ure in casting the twenty-six votes of Kentucky for the world's 
greatest orator, William J. Bryan. 

Ohio cast her 46 votes for McLean, but the Chairman 



Democratic National Convention. 823 

of the delegation stated that there were 9 preferences for 
Bryan; i for Bland; 2 for Pattison and 2 not voting. 

The roll call having been completed in regular course, 
the Secretary returned to call the names of the States 
which had been passed. Upon the second call the State of 
West Virginia was still not ready to vote. 

Illinois upon the second call cast her forty-eight votes 
for William J. Bryan. 

Mr. McLean, of Ohio, said : Ohio withdraws the name 
of John R. McLean and casts forty-six votes for William 
J. Bryan. 

Ex-Governor Stone, of Missouri : Mr. Chairman and 
Gentlemen of the Convention : Two or three days since I' 
received this note (holding up a letter) which I ^vill now read 
in your hearing, from Richard Parks Bland. 

" I wish it to be. understood that I do not desire the nomina- 
tion unless it is the judgment of the free silver delegates that 
I would be the strongest candidate. If it "should at .any time 
appear that my candidacy is the least obstruction to the 
nominatioa of any candidate who is acceptable to the free 
coinage delegates in the Convention, or one more acceptable 
to a majority of those delegates than myself, I wish my name 
at once unconditionally withdrawn from further consideration. 
I am willing to ^vaive the State instructions for me if need be 
and let the free silver delegates decide the whole matter. The 
cause must be put above the man." 

I came to this great city as one of the delegates from Mis- 
souri, voicing the sentiment of the Democracy of that State to 
present for your deliberate consideration the name of that 
illustrious commoner, for w^hom many of you have expressed 
preference by your votes in this Convention. To those who 
have been our friends in the struggle, I desire now to return 
my grateful appreciation. But, following the directions of Mr. 
Bland himself, that ^vhenever a majority of the silver dele- 
gates in this Convention shall have expressed a preference for 
another he desired his name unconditionally and peremptorily 
withdrawn, I now, in the name of Missouri, lower the 
standard under which we have fought throughout this Con- 



824 Official Proceedings of the 

vention, and in its place I lift that of the gifted and glorious- 
son of Nebraska. 

Gentlemen, we have chosen a splendid leader, beautiful as 
Apollo, intellectual beyond comparison, a great orator, a great 
scholar, but above all, beating in his breast there is a heart 
that throbs in constant sympathy with the great masses of the 
people and instinct with the highest sentiments of patriotism. 

We will not only nominate him, but I believe, with as 
much confidence as I can believe anything in the future, that 
we will elect him by an overwhelming majority in November, 
and that we will inaugurate not only a Democratic adminis- 
tration at Washington, but one which at its close will be set 
down as among the purest and ablest and the most illustrious 
of American history. So now, gentlemen, I withdraw the 
name of Richard Parks Bland, and cast the thirty-four 
votes of our State for William J. Bryan, of Nebraska. 

The Chair : I present to the Convention A. Van Wage> 
nen, of Iowa. 

Mr. Van Wagenen : Gentlemen of the Convention : 
When the delegation from Iowa came to Chicago they bore 
w^ith them a message from our great Democratic leader. It 
was this : "I have in my heart but one desire, and that is the 
success of the great cause in which we are all engaged." He 
said to us : "If I am not nominated at Chicago it will be no 
personal disappointment to me. If the cause for which we 
are fighting shall not succeed in November it will be a great 
personal disappointment to me. My advice and my request 
to you is that, notwithstanding your strong instructions, if,, 
when you get to the Chicago Convention, you are satisfied 
there is any man who can poll more votes than I, 1 ask you to 
cast the vote of Iowa for him." Now, my friends, while we 
have great confidence in Horace Boies, while we have under- 
stood here what was his strength, perhaps as you do not, we 
at this time believe, after looking at this great assemblage,, 
that William J. Bryan, of Nebraska, can poll more votes 
than any other candidate before this Convention. I am, there- 
fore, instructed by the delegation from Iowa to withdraw 
Governor Boies' name from your consideration, and cast our 
26 votes for William J. Bryan, of Nebraska. I want. 



Democratic National Convention. 325 

further to say to you, right here, that, his health permitting, 
you will find Governor Boies upon the stump for Mr. Bryan, 
and, we believe, knowing his great power as an orator, his 
great character as a man, that you will find no other such an 
ally upon the stump for this great cause in November. I 
thank you, gentlemen, for your kind attention. 

The Secretary announced that Iowa cast her 26 votes 
for W. J. Bryan. The Chair then recognized Senator 
Jones, of Arkansas, the Chairman of the Arkansas delega- 
tion, who said: 

Senator Jones : The name of Richard P. Bland hav- 
ing been withdrawn, the State of Arkansas desires to change 
her vote from Bland to Bryan. 

The Chair then recognized the Chairman of the Mon- 
tana delegation, who addressed the Convention as follows: 

Mr. Chairman : The delegation from Montana has been 
placed between the two great states of Missouri and Nebraska. 
We have upon each ballot cast our votes unanimously for our 
first choice, Richard P. Bland. But, as we have stood by 
Mr. Bland from first to last, we just as cheerfully now give 
our votes to the man from Nebraska — to William J. Bryajv. 

After considerable effort the Chairman succeeded in 
restoring sufficient order for Senator Turpie, who had come 
upon the stand, to be heard. 

Senator Turpie said : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of 
the Convention : The delegation from our State has stood 
first to last by our distinguished Chief Executive of Indiana, 
but I am now authorized by the delegation from Indiana and 
the great Democratic constituency v/hich it represents, to cast 
the 80 votes of our State for W. J. Bryan, of Nebraska. Mr. 
President, I also further move you and the delegates of this 
Convention, in the interest of unity, which should make 
unanimity — I move that the nomination of W. J. Bryan for 
the office of President of the United States be made 
unanimous. 



826 Official Proceedings of the 

Gov. Culberson, of Texas : Mr. Chairman, in view of 
the fact that the friends of Mr. Bland have withdrawn his 
name from this contest, I am instructed by the majority of tlie 
delegates from Texas to cast the votes of that State for Will- 
iam J. Bryan. 

A Texas Delegate : I am one of tlie minority, and I 
refuse to change my vote to Bryan. I want to say further, 
Mr. Chairman, that no man of the same capacity — 

At this point the Chair ruled that the delegate was out 
of order. 

Mr. Evans, of Utah, came upon the platform, was 
recognized by the Chair and spoke as follows: 

Mr. Chairman : Young Utah desires to cast its 6 votes 
for young Wellington J. Bryan, and I second the motion 
that his nomination be made unanimous. 

Following is the fifth and final ballot on the presidential 
nomination, as changed and corrected : 



Democratic National Convention. 



32T 



FIFTH BALLOT. 



states. 


■J 

< 

O 


Bryan 


z 
< 


z 

P 

< 


z 

o 

z 

> 

w 

H 
CO 


Hill 

TUKPIE 


c 

O o 


Alabama 


22 

16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

6 

8 

20 

72 

22 

6 

46 

8 

64 

8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 
24 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 


22 
16 

18 
8 

'"l 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

4 

5 

6 

28 

11 

18 

34 

6 

16 
6 








1 




Arkansas 












California. 








1 




Colorado 








.... 1 ... . 




Connecticut 




2 








10 


Delaware 


3 


■ 






2 


Florida 












Georgia 














Idaho 














Illinois 














Indiana 














Iowa 














Kansas 














Kentucky 














Louisiana 














Maine 




4 
10 








4 


Maryland 








1 


Massachusetts 


3 


2 






18 


Michigan 






^Imnesota 






2 






5 


Mississippi 

Alissouri 


























^Montana , 














Nebraska 














Nevada 














New Hampshire 

New Jersey 




1 
2 






. . . . 


7 








18 


New \ ork 












72 


North Carolina 


22 

4 














North Dakota 






2 




.... 




Ohio 


46 








«... 




Oregon 


8 














Pennsylvania 


64 
6 










Rhode Island 












2 


South Carolina 


18 
8 

24 

30 
6 
4 

24 
4 
2 
5 
6 
^ 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 












South Dakota 














Tennessee 














Texas 














Utah 














\ ermont 












4 


\irginia 














\\ ashington . . ; 


4 

7 


•\' ■ ■ 




. . . 






West A'irginia 




2 


.... 
. . . . 






W isconsin 


19 


Wyoming 














Alaska 








.. . 






Arizona 














District of Columbia 














New Mexico. . 














Oklahoma 














Indian Territory 




























Totals 


930i 


652' 


11 


95 


8 


1, 


1 


162 



828 Official Proceedings of the 

The Chairman then put the motion of Senator Turpie, 
from Indiana, to make the nomination unanimous and de- 
clared the vote carried. The Chairman declared an infor- 
mal recess of an indefinite length. When quiet was partially 
restored the Reading Clerk announced that Chairman Har- 
RITY, of the Democratic National Committee, informed the 
members of that Committee that in the event of the Con- 
vention adjourning ^/;^^ die to-day there would be a meeting 
of the present Democratic National Committee held in the 
main parlor of the Palmer House on Saturday; but should 
a session of the Convention be held on Saturday, the hour 
of the meeting of the National Committee would be duly 
announced. 

The Sergeant-at-Arms then announced, at the request 
of the Chair, that the Convention was in recess until 8 
o'clock this evening. 

The Convention thereupon took a recess until 8 o'clock 
p. M. 



Democratic National Convention. 829 



KOURTH DAY. 



EVENING SESSION, 



Chicago, III., July lo, 1896. 

The Chairman, Senator White, called the Convention 
to order at 8:55 P. M., in the following words: 

The Chair : The gentlemen will come to order. The 
Chair is requested to announce that after the nominations for 
Vice-President are made, whenever that may be, the Com- 
mittee upon Notification will at once meet in the rooms of 
the Committee on Resolutions at the right of the Chairman's 
desk. 

Permit me to introduce to you the eloquent and unsuc- 
cessfully protesting Chairman of the Wisconsin delegation, 
my friend General Bragg. 

General Bragg : Gentlemen of the Convention : I rise, 
Mr. Chairman, on a question of State privilege ; the gentle- 
men of the South know what that is (cries of louder). 
I have no fireman's trumpet with me. While the delegation 
of Wisconsin was to-day engaged in a private consultation as 
to ^vhat should be done by them in the future some gen- 
tleman (I suppose he was a gentleman — in fact, I know him 
to be such,) stole the colors of our State and passed them as 
the representation of my delegation and of my State into the 
trail of the victor, for whom we had refused to cast our votes. 
I make this statement not with regard to any gentleman who 
did it, but simply to place the State which I represent 
as its Chairman right, so that the record will show that 
^ve trailed not the Wisconsin " Badger " behind the votes of 
the majority of this Convention. 



880 Official Proceedings of the 

Mr. DocKERY attempted to take the stand to answer 
General Bragg's remarks. 

General Bragg said : If you make any personal remarks 
about me you will suffer for it. 

The Chair : The Chair knows the distinguished soldier 
from Wisconsin and believes that whatever asperity might 
exist between the gentlemen from Wisconsin ought not 
to enter into a National Convention. I am satisfied that the 
gentlemen in the end will be found supporting the ticket, and 
I refuse to recognize Mr. Dockery for the purpose of ad* 
dressing the Convention on factional disputes. 

The question before the Convention is the nomination of 
Vice-President of the United States. I present Governor 
Stone, of Missouri. 

Governor Stone : Gentlemen of the Convention : Up 
to this date the attention of the Convention has been wholly 
absorbed with the platform to be made and the candidate to 
be named for the Presidency. The work so far done has been, 
in my judgment, so well done that it will receive the instant 
and enthusiastic approval of the people. But the work 
yet to be performed by this Convention is of great importance. 
We have yet to name a Democrat to be associated with our 
great leader upon the ticket. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that 
this important work ought not to be hastily or inconsider- 
ately performed. It should, on the contrary, be performed 
after the most mature deliberation possible under the circum- 
stances. So far no attention has been paid to this. 

To the end that the delegates may have an opportunity to 
confer with each other and to arrive at a conclusion which in 
the end ^vill strengthen the ticket, and to the end that no 
mistake shall be made, I desire to move that this Convention 
do now adjourn until 12 o'clock noon to-morrow. 

Mr. Henry, of Mississippi, moved to amend by making 
the hour lo o'clock instead of 12 and Gov. Stone accepted 
the amendment. 

Mr.cMENZiES, of Indiana, demanded a call of the roll of 



Democratic National Convention. 331 

States, and the Chairman ordered the Secretary to call the 
roll, which was done, with the following result: 

Yeas. Navs. 

Alabama 22 

Arkansas 16 

Calitornia , 18 

Colorado 8 

Connecticut 12 

Delaware 1 ^8 

Florida 8 

Georgia 26 

Idaho 6 

Indiana 30 

Iowa 26 

At this point Mr. Morris obtained the recognition of 
the Chair and said: 

Mr. Morris : Mr. Chairman : Illinois desires to be called. 

The Chair : Call the roll of Illinois, if we are to be an- 
noyed by such roll calls. 

Mr. Morris : We do not Avant the roll called. We 
simply want to have our State called. 

The Secretary again called the State of Illinois and Mr. 
Morris said: 

Mr. Morris : Illinois, in order that no mistakes may be 
made, insists that there be an adjournment until to-morrow 
morning and casts forty-eight votes yea. 

The roll call was proceeded with as follows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Kansas , 20 

Kentucky 26 

Mr. Donovan, of Illinois, secured the attention of the 
Chair and demanded a call of the delegates. The Chair 
said : 

The Chair : Illinois shall have the opportunity. The 
delegate \vill please sit do\vn. 

The roll of delegates of the State of Illinois was called 
by the Secretary, with the following result: 



832 



Official Proceedings of the 



The Clerk : The State of Illinois casts 24 votes aye, 16 
votes nay, 8 absent. 

The Secretary continued the calling of the roll as fol- 
lows: 

Yeas. Nays. 

Maine 12 

Louisiana 16 

The Secretary, continuing, called the roll of Maryland. 
A delegate from that State attempted to make an explana- 
tion and got as far as to say: We will agree — 

The Chair : What will you agree to.? 
The Delegate : I want to say — 
The Chair : Call the roll. 

The Secretary obeyed the instruction of the Chair and 
Maryland voted sixteen votes no. The Secretary pro- 
ceeded calling Mass^achusetts next, which voted twenty- 
seven no, three not voting. 

Yeas. Nays. 

Michigan 28 

Mississippi , .^ 18 

Minnesota (7 absent) 11 

Missouri ' 24 

Montana 6 

Nebraska / 6 

Nevada 46 

New Hampshire, not voting 

New Jersey, not voting 

New York, declining to vote 

North Carolina 22 

North Dakota 6 

When Ohio was called Horace Alford, of that State, 
arose and said: 

Mr. Alford : There has been no poll of the Ohio dele- 
gation, and the only way to cast a vote is by having the roll 
called. 

The Chair : I disagree with you. Take your seat. 
Mr. Alford : I ask for a call of the roll. 



Democratic National Convention. 



833 



The Chair : It will not be called. Go and sit down. 

Qhio was then called by the reading clerk and responded 
with 46 yeas. 



69 
6 



Yeas. Nays. 

Oregon 8 

Pennsylvania 

Rhode Island 

South Carolina 18 

South Dakota 8 

Tennessee 24 

Texas 30 

Utah 6 

Vermont : 

Virginia 24 

Washington 8 

West Virginia 10 

Wisconsin 24 

Wyoming 6 



\)ohy^ 



8 



Alaska 

Arizona 

New Mexico .... 

Oklahoma 

Indian Territory 



6 

6 
6 
6 
6 



1. . 



A delegate from Rhode Island obtained recognition^ 
and said that Rhode Island wanted a chance to vote, and 
the Chair said: 

The Chair : Well, w^hat is the vote of Rhode Island? 

The delegate said that Rhode Island desired to cast 6 
votes no; and the Secretary recorded the votes accordingly. 

The Secretary announced to the audience that the tick- 
ets without coupons would be good for admission to- 
morrow. 

The Chair : For everybody who does not talk too much. 

Without waiting for the result of the roll call to be an- 
nounced the Convention adjourned to July 11, 1896, at IQ 
o'clock A. M. 



884 Official Proceedings of the 



KIKTH DAY. 



Chicago, III., July ii, 1896. 

The Convention was called to order by the Chairman, 
Senator White, at eleven o'clock, in the following words: 

The Chair : The Convention will come to order. Mr. 
Harrity, of Pennsylvania, desires to make an announcement. 

Mr. Harrity : Gentlemen of the Convention : Through 
the kindness of your Chairman I am permitted to announce 
that the meeting of the present Democratic National Com- 
mittee which was called to meet in the main parlor of the 
Palmer House at 12 o'clock, noon, will not be held until 3 
o'clock this afternoon, this change having been made neces- 
sary because of the session of the Convention this morning. 
The meeting of the present Committee will be held at 3 o'clock, 
and the members of the new Committee will be welcome, if 
they will attend. 

General Finley, of Ohio : You will remember that the 
State of Michigan and the State of Nebraska, and perhaps 
one other, have not elected their members of the National 
Committee, and it was referred to the Committee on Perma- 
nent Organization. I have since learned that the Chairmen 
of these respective States have passed in the names of their 
National Committeemen.' I now move that this Convention 
ratify and adopt the action of the Chairmen of these State 
Committees. 

Nicholas M. Bell, of Missouri : The State of Missouri 
has not made any selection, but will do so in a few moments 
and w^ill report. 

General Finley : I will include the name of whatever 
gentleman the delegation of Missouri may select. 



Democratic National Convention. 885 

Senator Tillman, of South Carolina : I move that the 
doors of the Convention be thrown open to the pubHc so that 
the people may occupy those vacant seats. 

The Chair : That has already been done. 

Senator Jones, of Arkansas : I move that the roll of 
States be called, and that the speeches nominating candidates 
be limited to five minutes to each candidate. 

This motion was adopted. 

Mr. Bell, of Missouri : Missouri presents the name of 
Governor W. J. Stone as a member of the National Com- 
mittee from that State. 

Mr. G. V. Menzies, of Indiana : We have selected for 
member of the National Committee John G. Shanklin. 

The Chair : The question now is upon the ratification 
of the selections made by the various delegations for National 
Committeemen. If there is no objection it is so ordered. 

The Chair then recognized Mr. O'Sullivan, of Massa- 
chusetts. 

Mr. J. T. O'Sullivan : Mr. Chairman and Democrats 
of this Convention : I am a free coinage man from the Com- 
monwealth of Massachusetts. I am here to present a man 
from that old Common\vealth for the suffrages of this Conven- 
tion. He is not a millionaire and he has no money to offer 
in this contest for the people's rights. I come from a city 
and a district that Benjamin F. Butler represented in the 
Charleston Convention in 1860, and from which he bolted, 
but I do not bolt, nor do my people froin whom I come. 

In this great hall \vhere \vere gathered 16,000 people we 
witnessed yesterday a scene unparalleled in the history of the 
world in time of war or in time of peace. We saw a man 
come here who had no voices pleading for him, nor a blare of 
trumpets to announce his candidacy; but he stood here and by 
the simple force of his magnificent presence he s\vept this 
Convention of delegates off its feet, and we, for the first time 
in many years, saw a representative Convention nominate 



386 Official Proceedings of the 

a man who was not slated by its leaders. We were in the 
presence of a scene that rivaled the gatherings in the Coliseum 
in the days of Roman triumph, and the only incident in the 
history of the world that equals it is when Napoleon 
returned from Elba, and without striking a blow or firing a 
musket took an empire by the magic of his name. And the 
people of this country, in opposition to the daguerreotype 
imitation of a Napoleon, nominated by a HANNA-led Con- 
vention, have nominated a man from the loins of the people. 

Now, you have given the South and West the platform. 
Carry the war into Africa and give us the candidate. We 
nominate a man from Massachusetts who had the courage of 
his convictions ; w^ho came out for silver in a country where 
fifty out of fifty-one bankers cannot tell what 16 to 1 means, 
while every boy west of the Missouri and south of Mason and 
Dixon's line can tell you that. Gentlemen, the war is over. 
If you want to answer that sullen delegation from New York 
that sits there, if you v^ant to prove to the Nation that you 
turned down the illustrious leader of that State because he 
represented'gold and not the East, you will come to the East 
for your candidate. 

Gentlemen, I nominate a man who was once a gold man,, 
but who saw the error of his way, and I propose to you, my 
friends, to have ocean join hands with ocean, to have the man 
from the wheat fields of Nebraska, where live the producers, 
join hands with the plain people of my country, vs^here they 
go in the gray dawn of morning by the thousands to earn 
their bread by the sweat of their brows, as God Almighty 
told them ; the consumers, who buy your wheat and who will 
vote for silver to give you a fair price for that wheat, in order 
that you may buy clothes and cloth from them ; and I have 
the honor and the pleasure to name for Vice-President of the 
United States and this Republic a man whose voice has ever 
been raised against corporations, George Fred Williams,. 
of Massachusetts. 

The Chair says I have one minute more, I can do a great 
deal in a minute. I can tell you why the delegation from* 
Massachusetts is divided on this issue. Two years ago in the 
grand old commonwealth, under the gilded dome of the State 
house, across to the east of which lies the shadow of Bunker 



Democratic National Convention. 837 

Hill, in which thronged the fathers of Concord and Lexing- 
ton, George Fred Williams opposed the greedy schemes of 
the West End to buy the legislature. The president of the 
West End is Henry Whitney ; Henry Whitney is the 
brother of the magnate of the Standard Oil Company from 
New York who sits here and does not vote, and who went 
into our organization and used his influence against George 
Fred Williams. 

We do not want a man with a "barrel." We are going 
to inaugurate a new revolution here — a peaceful revolution — 
and when we want funds we will take the dimes and half- 
dollars of the people, and we will appeal for a popular sub- 
scription which will come from our friends who propose to 
prosper in their happy homes, which lie all the way from 
Texas to the great lakes on the north, and from ocean to 
ocean. 

Mr. W. B. Marston : Gentlemen of the Convention : I 
assure you that I have not tasted a drop of water this morning. 
r rise upon this floor as a delegate from Louisiana, represent- 
ing not myself alone upon the Louisiana delegation, as was 
proven yesterday when T undertook to take this floor. But, 
sir, before high heaven, I declare here in the presence of this 
assembled multitude, that I do represent the State of Louisi- 
ana. I come here by the unanimous consent of my district, 
and I come here, sirs, as a patriot. I am not a politician ; I 
am simply a Louisiana planter ; but my rights upon this floor 
I dare to maintain, and, sirs, looking over this whole situa- 
tion and seeing the magnificent platform we have adopted,, 
and the candidate we have put upon that platform to be 
landed next November in the White House — I say that I 
think it is necessary to put a man by his side — an old stager 
w^ho is Avell broken into the harness — to keep this young colt, 
if necessary, in the traces, 1 know he is a thoroughbred, and 
therefore, we should take the better care of him. 

Who is the grandest wheel-horse in the Democratic party? 
Which is the pivotal State of this L^nion ? John R. McLean,. 
of Ohio, is the man, and Ohio is the pivotal State. Nomi- 
nate him, fellow delegates of this Convention, and we will 

sweep this country as a prairie on fire, and we will land our 
22 



888 Official Proceedings of the 

man in the Presidential house next November, and give the 
interests of this country into the keeping of the Democratic 
party of this nation for the next twenty-five years. 

The Chair : If tliere be no other nominations the Clerk 
will proceed to call the roll of States. 

Thomas Maloney, of Washington : I don't w^ant to get 
up on the platform, but I w^ant to put in nomination James 
Hamilton Lewis, of the great State of Washington. 

The Chair : Who are you anyway, and what do you 
want? 

Mr. Maloney : I am Delegate Thomas Maloney, of 
the great State of Washington. 

Tpie Chair : Well, come up on the platform and say 
Tvhat you want to. 

Air, Maloney : No, I won't go up on the platform. I 
will speak from the floor. In behalf of the State of Washing- 
ton, I place in nomination her honored son, James Hamil- 
ton Lewis. That will do; that's all I want to say. 

The Chair : I present Hon. J. H. Currie, of North 
Carolina. 

Mr. Currie : Mr. Chairman "and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : I come here to this platform to place in nomination 
a man who, I think, when I mention his name will be known 
not only within the confines of his own State, but from one 
end of this broad land to the other. I know not how it may 
be to-day, I know not who will lead this Convention ; or what 
occasion may arise when such a baptism of patriotism will be 
poured out on it that may it make no mistake, but I name a man 
who will follow our great leader to victory. We are aware, 
Mr. Chairman, and I can congratulate this Convention on one 
thing, that they came here with one purpose, and that was to 
serve their country and the cause for v^^hich they have been 
battling for years. And I think it is the greatest compliment 
that can be paid to this Convention to say that there is not one 
single state, there is not one single banner, that was placed in 
the hands of this great Convention from any State it repre- 



Democratic National Conventiox. 889 

sented that was trailed, that was lowered, that was placed in 
jeopardy, but they all come here in obedience to their States, 
and the papers of this city paid this Convention a great com- 
pliment \vhen they said that it was governed by a firm, deter- 
inined, solid silver delegation from all the States that stand 
for silver. I say, Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of this Con- 
vention, that that is one of the things that we ought to be con- 
gratulated on, and if this Coliseum is to be the future place for 
the meetings of all the Conventions may we hope and pray 
that God in His majesty will rule all Conventions of all parties 
who come here in obedience to the wish and to do the will of 
their constituents, and show to the world that they were not 
for sale, that they would not waver in the ranks, but stand 
steady to do the duty which was placed upon them. 

Gentlemen of the Convention, I come to place in nomina- 
tion a man who is revered and honored in his own State and 
all over the country where he is known ; and what can a man 
ask more than to be honored by all the people? In the last 
election he was the nominee of the great Democratic party of 
North Carolina for a position on the supreme bench. He 
received the indorsement of all his party, and received the 
votes of the two other parties, both Republican and Populist. 

Now, my fellow countrymen and gentlemen of this Con- 
vention, there is no man — there is no citizen of North Caro- 
lina that would have this Convention do other than the very 
wisest thing — place the strongest man that you can possibly 
find in the lead with that great champion that is now holding 
the banner of Democracy, and I will place in nomination the 
name of Judge Walter Clark, our honored and gifted son 
on the supreme bench of North Carolina. 

The Chair introduced Mr. Thomas Johnson as follows: 

The Chair : Gentlemen of the Convention. It gives me 
great pleasure now to present to you a gentleman who seems 
to be well known to many of you. I had the honor to serve in 
two Congresses at Washington with this gentleman. I saw 
him there when the Wilson tariff bill was under consideration, 
and although he stood upon the floor and admitted that he 
belonged, or that he knew of the steel trust, as it was called — 
the trust for the manufacture of steel rails — and althous'h he 



840 Official Proceedings of the 

was engaged in a business occupation which derived immense 
profits from that trust, he had the honor and the courage to 
vote and contend that steel rails should be put upon the tree 
list. I present to you the big hearted, the honest, the brave 
and courageous Tom Johnson, of Ohio. 

Mr. Johnson : Mr. Chairman, Ladies, Gentlemen and 
Fellow Democrats : I come before you to-day to put in nom- 
ination for the Vice Presidency George W. Fithian, of Illi- 
nois. Fie was six years a member of Congress; and his action 
on every vote there places him in entire accord with our plat- 
form, and he has the merit ; and I think the thing that is ab- 
solutely necessary for the Vice Presidency, he is not a wealthy 
man. This fight will have to be won by the plain people, by 
the people on one side who are interested in humanity against 
property on the other side. If it is a race between money and 
men, gentlemen, money will be altogether on the other side. 
What few wealthy Democrats the Democratic party had have 
mostly gone over to the support of McKinley. You cannot 
win this fight except you stand for humanity,, and I am not a 
free silver man. But I do believe that the Democratic party 
has started a great revolution for the interests of the people; 
and in free silver, although I think it is wrong, you have a 
movement for the good of humanity, and therefore I am with 
you heartily. 

Make not the mistake of thinking that you can, by merely 
nominating men with money, accomplish anything. It will 
chill the ardor of this Convention ; it will chill the people. 
Have both men poor men. Mr. Fithian fills the bill. He 
was an honorable member of Congress ; he comes from a 
State that is pivotal ; he is in just the position to add to the 
strength of the ticket, and I hope to God you will nominate 
him. 

The Chair then introduced Mr. Miller, of Oregon. 

Hon. M. A. Miller : Mr. Chairman and Fellow Demo- 
crats of the National Convention : I rise before you this 
morning to place in nomination for the office of Vice Presi- 
dent a man who will unite under our banner all the labor 
movements in this country ; a man who comes from the com- 



Democratic National Convention. 841 

mon people ; a man who has been twice elected Governor of 
the great State of Oregon as a Democratic nominee, notwith- 
standing the fact that the State was 10,000 Republican ; a man 
who has recently been almost unanimously elected Mayor of 
the great metropolis of the Northwest ; who in all his acts has 
been for the common people of this country; and I say to you 
to-day, in all candor and in all honesty, that if you place upon 
this ticket, alongside of the distinguished William J. Bryan, 
of Nebraska, the name of the distinguished Governor of Ore- 
gon, Sylvester Pennoyer, you will make no mistake. 

When Pennoyer was Governor of the great State of Ore- 
gon the railroad companies had trouble with their employes. 
He went upon the scene of action, and he said to those cor- 
porations : " Pay your men and you will have no more trouble." 
And the trouble ceased there, and he failed to call out the 
militia to protect the corporations of that State. He comes 
from the common people. His heart is in sympathy with this 
great movement. I say to you that Pennoyer will unite the 
people all over this country, and as election day approaches 
the name of Pennoyer will add strength and faith to the 
great labor movements, and this country will indorse him, and 
he will be triumphantly elected. I appeal to you to recognize 
the Pacific coast and place upon this ticket the name of vSyl- 
vester Pennoyer, of Oregon. 

The Chairman then presented to the Convention Will- 
iam R. BuRK, of California. 

Mr, Burk ; Mr. Chairman and Ladies and Gentlemen of 
the Convention : What I say to you at this juncture I know 
in one respect will commend itself to you. I shall be brief. 
Gentlemen, taking into account the great mission which has 
called us into Convention, it seems to me that we should con- 
sider matters far beyond the reach of this great body. We 
should consider that there are people whom we represent who 
have to vote on this great question, and those people represent 
forty-seven of the great Northern States, starting from Maine, 
reaching to the Pacific, touching the Atlantic coast on the 
south and extending far beyond into the State of Texas. There- 
fore, Mr. Chairman, as I have said, geographical consideration 
should prompt us, as well as the question of ability. 



842 Official Proceedings of the 

It would not become me to say aught of any gentleman 
whose name has been brought before you in this connection. 
I would not say aught of the gentleman from North Carolina 
or from Oregon or from any of the great western States, but 
it seems to me that when w^e come to make up the remaining 
portion of this ticket we should consider those States beyond 
the Blue Ridge mountains, and in that connection I present a 
candidate who represents every element which is presented to 
you in your platform and in your distinguished candidate for 
the President, William J. Bryan. I take pleasure in pre- 
senting for your careful consideration the name of Arthur 
Sewall, of Maine. Mr. President, it may be well said of 
him, in connection with the great questions involved in this 
matter and the interests w^hich are before you, that he w^ill 
fulfill the pledges which have been made by your platform at 
this time. You will make no mistake in nominating him. 

The Chairman then presented J. D. Shewalter, of 
Missouri. 

Mr. Shew^alter : Mr. Chairman and fellow Democrats : 
I ask your attention for a short time, promising that I will not 
detain you but a few minutes. When a great crisis arises a 
great statesman is produced to meet it. Great issues produce 
great men. On yesterday the star of destiny took its flight 
westward and pointed its index finger to the fair and fertile 
plains of Nebraska^ and the man whom you selected will be a 
modern Moses, who will lead our people from the land of 
bondage into the regions of freedom. 

Perish the thought that the utterances that were heard dur- 
ing the proceedings of this Convention that we were governed 
by sectional interests and sectional impulses in our choice. I 
say that we love][rock-ribbed Massachusetts ; we love her great 
and enduring fame. And here and now I say that we rever- 
ently bow at the base of Plymouth Rock and gather inspira- 
tion for the Democracy amid the high aspirations that cluster 
there. We revere and love the great State of New York. 
We admire her grand achievements for the Democracy in the 
past. We well remember that her virgin soil was pressed by 
the feet of those who have fought to fulfill the promises and 
carry out the principles of Democracy. We recall w^ith pride 



Democratic National Convention. 843 

her Morrises, her Tildens, her Seymours, and the Democ- 
racy remembers with gratitude and reflects upon the magnifi- 
cent service of her great Senator. We nominate a man in the 
interest of no section. We recognize as Democrats an indis- 
soluble union of indissoluble and equal States, divided as the 
billows, but one as the sea. 

I now go to the East and produce a name known to every 
delegate present for his distinguished services in the cause of 
humanity and Democracy ; a statesman most profound ; an 
orator eloquent; indeed, a man who, seizing the banner of the 
people in the people's righteous cause, threw it in the face of ag- 
gregated powerand challenged it to the conflict. I name for the 
second place upon this ticket a man who will add strength to 
it ; I name the man who in a Republican district was elected 
by an overwhelming majority to Congress ; I nominate Joseph 
C. Sibley, of the grand commonwealth of Pennsylvania. 

The Chair then introduced to the Convention C. S. 
Thomas, of Colorado. 

Mr, Thomas : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : My voice is in no condition this morning for speak- 
ing. I only desire to second a nomination already made. The 
West has secured the first place upon this ticket in the person 
of the brilliant and magnetic orator from Nebraska. We 
should turn our eyes now to the East and look to the solid at- 
tainments of a business man for the second choice on this 
ticket. We should unite as far as possible the diversified in- 
terest and feeling of the Democracy of the United States by 
placing upon the ticket as our second choice a man whose 
business interests, business experience, business training and 
life-long devotion to the cause of Democracy make him emi- 
nently fitted to fill out as a full and rounded whole the work 
which, so auspiciously begun, has up to this time been so well 
performed. In the ranks of the Democratic party for polit- 
ical distinction we recognize neither wealth nor poverty. 
Every man \vho expresses and by his conduct testifies his de- 
votion to the great principles of our Democratic faith, regard- 
less of his condition or standing, is entitled to respectful con- 
sideration at the hands of a National Convention. 

A man has already been presented to the consideration of 



344 Official Proceedings of the 

this Convention, who all his life has been a devoted follower 
of Democratic faith. He obtained the inspiration of his be- 
lief from Jefferson and from Jackson, and, inspired by 
the splendid diction and unanswerable logic of a great son of 
Kentucky years and years ago, became a disciple of the great 
bimetallic principle, which you have crystallized into a cardi- 
nal principle of Democratic faith by placing it in your platform. 

This gentleman comes from one of the remote corners of 
the United States, where, if I am correctly informed, he was 
born ; there he spent the best days of his young manhood, and 
there to-day he is enjoying in its full fruition the fruits, the 
harvest of a life well spent, and as a citizen has long enjoyed 
the confidence and esteem not only of his Democratic breth- 
ren but of all \vith whom he has come in contact. 

I desire, therefore, \vithout extended eulogy, although 
upon that name I might speak far greater length of time, 
perhaps, than would be consonant with your ^vishes, but I 
recognize that you desire to have the roll called as soon as 
possible without saying anything beyond this, that his name 
is that of a solid, conservative, sound substantial business 
man, whose interests are extensive and extended, the sails of 
whose yessels whiten the seas of the world ; I desire to second 
the nomination of Arthur Seavall, of Maine. 

The Chair recognized Governor Culberson, of Texas. 

Gov. Culberson : Mr. Chairman. I am instructed by 
the delegation from Texas to say that on the call of the roll 
by States the vote of Texas vs^ill be cast for Richard P. 
Bland, of Missouri. 

The Chair then introduced Mr. O. W. Powers, of 

Utah. 

Mr. Powers : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : After years of industrial misery ; after sorrow and 
suffering and travail ; after despair has driven thousands to 
suicide and filled the penitentiaries to overflowing; after hope 
had nearly left the breasts of the people. Democracy has 
parted the clouds, and behold there is a silver lining. 
Democracy points toward the doorway of prosperity, she 
bids all to enter : and she will do all in her powxr to restore 



• Democratic National Convention . 345 

the halcyon days even as they existed before gold and greed 
blighted this land and bound the faces of the people to the 
great grindstone of distress. Nations may rise and nations 
may fall ; parties may become recreant to their principles ; 
men may come and men may go, but Democracy will live 
forever. It was born when God said "Let there be light," 
when the birds sang and the trees burst into bloom and the 
great orb of day thrust life into the breast of earth with its 
golden shaft. Its undying creed is equal rights to all and 
unjust privileges to none. It is the life, the light, the soul of 
liberty. It "svill light this people through the dead sea of a 
financial disaster into the bright garden of prosperity. Ani- 
mated by this great principle, you have reaffirmed the Declar- 
ation of Independence ; you have inaugurated a ne^v era, 
wherein silver and gold, the twin money metals that lie 
locked in each other's embrace, shall go forth hand in hand, 
as God intended, scattering blessings upon every side. 

You have placed upon that platform a typical American ; 
one familiar with the needs of the entire country ; one v^ho is 
aware that west of Chicago there are thousands of homes 
filled with patriotic, intelligent and Christian people. I 
desire, now, on behalf of the youngest State ol the Union, a 
State whose star was placed upon the flag on Saturday last, 
amid the booming of cannon, the forty-sixth State, the 
State of Utah, and suggest the name for your consideration 
which, linked with that of Bryan, I believe will be carried 
for\vard to victory. I shall name one who coines froth the 
South. 

If it be said that he comes from a section of the country 
that is not yet ready for recognition, let me say to those who 
raise that objection that the South, risen from her ashes, has 
grasped the standard of our cominon country, and is leading 
the people forward in this great movement. I shall name one 
who is a scholar and who is a statesman. 

If it be said of him that I should not present the name 
because he comes from the South, let me say that I come from 
Abolition parents ; and I desire in this Convention to present 
the name of one wdiom my ancestors \vould have honored could 
they have known him, I also present him because our State 
owes to him more than it owes to almost any of the statesmen. 



346 Official Proceedings of the 

I present it by the unanimous voice of the delegation, by the 
wish of our people who are at home. Let me ask you, then, 
that we shall have no sectionalism. This is the people's fight. 
Our candidate for the Presidency received votes from the 
whole section of the country. Even the distinguished gentle- 
men from New York who abstained from their annual visits 
to the crowned heads of Europe, in order that they might 
have a softening and humanizing influence here, will know, 
when the ides of November shall come, that the people are 
about all riglit and they are all wrong, and they will fall into 
this procession and aid us in carrying Democracy on to 
victory. I should say no more, perhaps, than to present the 
name of my candidate. I present the name of the peerless 
orator, one fit to join hands with the peerless Bryan, I 
present the name of a man of pure character, one fit to sit in 
the highest seat of the nation. I present the name of a 
statesman who is without a peer in the Senate of the United 
States. I present and I ask of you that you shall vote for 
him and unite all sections. I present, without his knowledge 
and without the knowledge of his State, the name of John 
W. Daniel, of Virginia. 

Mr. W. A. Jonp:s, of Virginia : Mr. Chairman and Gen- 
tlemen of the Convention : We delegates from Virginia 
greatly appreciate the beautiful tribute that has been paid to 
Virginia's honored and gifted son; but, Mr. Chairman, I am 
instructed by Senator Daniel to say that if his name should 
be presented to this Convention, under no circumstances will 
he permit it to be used in connection with this high and exalted 
position. Therefore, I am constrained by his earnest desire 
to ask that his name shall not be considered in connection with 
this position. 

The Chair then presented Free P. Morris, of Illinois. 

Mr. Morris : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : While many distinguished men have been named 
for the high office of Vice-President of these United States, 
yet we adjourned last night with a view of deliberating upon 
the advisability of selecting a candidate whose name, ^vhose 
personality would mean for us when election day comes around. 



Democratic National Convention. 34T 

that success which we hoped and prayed for and which has 
led us to assemble in this Convention. Unless we act with 
wisdom the great efforts which have been made, will have 
been made in vain. This is no slight office. The office is 
next to the highest and grandest one that can possibly be con- 
ferred upon any citizen. I desire, ^vithout disparaging any 
gentleman whose name has been mentioned, to say that we 
should select one of wide business experience and capacity — a 
man who has been engaged in business so long that his name 
will stand before the people and assure them so that they may 
have the utmost confidence that if he is nominated and put 
upon the ticket he will be elected. 

Such a gentleman I propose to mention. He is one whose 
heart beats in sympathy with the downtrodden of the world. 
He is one "svhose name and personality .would consume iniqui- 
ties and destroy corruption. He is one ^vho believes that the 
stars that were emblazoned upon our national flag, like the 
stars in heaven, are sent forth as a message of liberty to our 
people and announce such to the world. I desire to say that 
if you link with the name of that masterful orator whom you 
named yesterday the gentleman whom I shall give to you, you 
will inscribe upon your banners as certain 'i^s the news shall go 
forth that his name has been put there the -word " Victory." 

I have the honor on behalf of the great commonwealth of 
the State of Illinois, to second the nomination of Joseph C. 
Sibley, of the vState of Pennsylvania. 

The Chairman then introduced Ulric Sloan, of Ohio. 

Mr. Sloan : Gentlemen of the Convention : The sturdy 
silver Democrats of Ohio highly appreciate the compli- 
ment conferred upon her beloved son, John R. McLean, by 
his being placed in nomination by her sister State, Louisiana. 
Ohio came here asking for the nomination of her son for the 
first place on this ticket ; asking for it in the name of the serv- 
ices since the demonetization of silver that he has rendered in 
the cause of its rehabilitation ; asking for it by reason of the 
fact that his strong individuality combined with and through 
the Cincinnati Enquirer has made this Convention of silver 
men possible. Asking it because she has made possible the 
seats of Kentucky, Indiana and West Virginia on this floor. 



848 Official Proceedings of the 

She failed to get the nomination for him, and she now does 
not present him because he does not wish his name presented 
for the second place. But he bids me, as the acting chairman 
of his delegation, and speaking in the name of the silver, not 
the gold Democrats of Ohio, to say in his name that the same 
patriotism and the same power that enabled this Convention 
to be here in the cause of free silver will be exerted to its ut- 
most, gentlemen of the Convention, to place Ohio in the 
column of Democratic States in November. 

The Chair then presented to the Convention George 
FiTHiAN, of Illinois. 

Mr. FiTHiAN : Gentlemen of the Convention : I am 
deeply grateful for the compliment that has been paid me by 
my distinguished friends from the State of Ohio, but I desire 
to say to this Convention that I am not a candidate for Vice- 
President. On behalf of the great State of Illinois which next 
November will roll up a Democratic majority for the national 
ticket, and again elect that distinguished son, the present 
Governor of this State, to the Governorship ; on behalf of the 
State of Illinois, I desire to second the nomination of Joseph 
C. Sibley, Pennsylvania's noble son. 

I had the honor and the pleasure to serve with him in 
Congress, and while some of his political enemies, hoping to 
destroy his usefulness in the battle for Democratic principles, 
have circulated the report that he was not a Democrat, but a 
Populist, I desire to say to the members of this Convention, 
who have not a personal acquaintance with him, that he is as 
good a Democrat as has a seat as a delegate to this Conven- 
tion upon this floor. It is true, gentlemen, that he differed 
with the President upon questions of policy, and he had the 
courage to express his opinion upon the great public questions 
of the day, regardless and fearless of the administration and 
of everybody, else. 

But, if I am a Democrat, Joe Sibley is a Democrat, and 
I believe I am as good a Democrat as ever \valked in shoe 
leather. The only thing that can be said against Joe Sib- 
ley's Democracy can be said by the gold standard men alone, 
and that is that he favors the free coinage of gold and silver 
at the ratio of 16 to 1. But it has been said that we ou^ht 



Democratic National Convention. g4,cy 

not to nominate him because, in a speech in the House of 
Representatives, in differing with the Federal administration 
upon matters of public policy, he used language that was, 
perhaps, too severe toward the President of the United States. 
I want to remind this Convention that a majority, yea, nearly 
two-thirds majority of this Convention, have, by voting down 
the resolution that was offered by the distinguished Senator 
from the State of New York — recognizing and indorsing the 
President of the United States for his courage, his honesty 
and his integrity — when this Convention, by a majority of 
nearly two-thirds, refused to say that the President of the 
United States ^vas a man of courage, a man of honesty, a man 
of integrity, then it seems to me that this Convention should 
not object to anything that Joe Sibi.ev said, criticising the 
federal administration in the Fifty-third Congress. 

The Chairman announces to me that my time is exhausted, 
and I will only add as a last remark that this Convention will 
do itself a great honor, aud the Democratic party great honor 
and great good, by putting that distinguished Pennsylvania!! 
upon its ticket. 

The Chair recognized Mr. John Scott, of Maine. 

Mr. Scott : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Con- 
vention : Maine is still in the Union ; Maine Democrats are 
still Maine Democrats, and next September we intend to 
come out of the woods and vote. If you think that the lot of 
a Maine Democrat has been a happy one — if you think that 
the path of a pioneer free-silver man of Maine has been 
strewn with roses — you have no conception of the land where 
we mount guard over the rising sun. Yet we have such 
a man in Maine — the star in the East of the silver 
Democracy — found in a quarter of the nation where you 
would last look for such a one — a leading business man, a 
New England president of a National bank, a man ^vhose 
ships have spread their white wings to the breeze of every 
ocean and carried the American flag to the uttermost parts of 
the earth. Because he would not desert the cause of the 
people it has been decreed by those who came here to th\vart 
the will of this delegation that he should be slaughtered in the 
house of his friends. I cannot, therefore, promise you that he 



§50 Off-icial Proceedings of the 

will have the entire Maine delegation behind him, but I can 
promise that next September he will have the Democracy of 
Maine behind him. 

In behalf of every man who admires matchless ability, 
inflexible integrity, and that courage which will stand without 
flinching even in the face of death, I second the nomination of 
Arthur Sewall, of Maine. In behalf of every Democrat 
who believes that even every suspicion of sectionalism should 
be removed from our ticket, I ask you that you place with the 
sunflower of Nebraska the pine cone of Maine, and next 
September the whispering pine shall sound a Democratic note 
which w^ill sound more threatening to the ears of the little 
Napoleon at Canton than the march of the Prussians did to 
the great Napoleon at Waterloo. 

The Chair : The Clerk will now announce the gentle- 
men who have been placed in nomination. 

The Clerk : The following gentlemen have been nom- 
inated for Vice-President : Mr. Williams, Mr. McLean, 
Mr. Lewis, Mr. Clark, Mr. Fithian, Governor Pennoyer, 
Mr. Sewall and Mr. Sibley., 

The Chair : The Clerk will now call the roll of the 
States. 

The Clerk then called the roll, as follows: 

Alabama: Williams, of Massachusetts, 4; Sewall, 4; 
Clark, 4; Lewis, 3; Boies, 4; Williams, of Illnois, 3. 

Arkansas : Sewall, 16. 

California: Sewall, 10 ; Boies, 7; Williams, of Mas- 
sachusetts, 1. 

Colorado: Sewall, 4; Williams, of Massachusetts, 4. 

Connecticut : William F. Harrity, 2; ten not voting. 

Delaware : William F. Harrity, 3 ; Sibley, 1 ; two not 
voting. 

Florida : Sewall, 8. 

Georgia : The State of Georgia for the present was passed. 

Idaho : Bland, 6. 

Illinois : Sibley, 48. 

Indiana: Sibley, 2; Fithian, 1; Williams, of Illinois, 



Democratic National Convention. 351 

4; Williams, of Massachusetts, 4; Blackburn, 4 ; Mc- 
Lean, 15. 

Iowa: Sibley, 14; Williaims, of Massachusetts, 11; 
Teller, 1. 

Kansas: Williams, of Massachusetts, 20. 

Kentucky : Sibley, 21 ; Sewall, 4 ; Williams, of Mas- 
sachusetts, 1. 

Louisiana : Blackburn, 16. 

When the State of Maine was reached the Chairman 
said: 

Mr. Chairman, I am authorized on behalf of the State of 
Maine to say that, while a majority of our delegation is absent, 
as a matter of State pride, at least, we give the vote of Maine 
to Arthur Sewall, 12 votes. 

The Chairman of the delegation of Maryland said: 

Mr. Chairman, our delegation, thinking the Convention 
w^ould adjourn last night, made their arrangements to return 
home this morning at 10 o'clock. Before leaving, how^ever, 
five of the delegates instructed me to vote for John R. Mc- 
Lean, of Ohio. The other delegates will be recorded as absent 
and not voting. 

The State of Massachusetts requested to be passed. 

Michigan : McLean, 28. 

Minnesota: Daniels, 1; Sewall, 2; Sibley, 10; 
absent, 5. 

Mississippi : Sewall, 18. 

Missouri: Williams, of Massachusetts, 3; Williams, of 
Illinois, 15 ; Sibley, 6 ; Sewall, 10. 

Montana : Sewall, 6. 

When Nebraska was called the Chairman of that dele- 
gation arose and said: 

Nebraska, grateful for the very high honor that has been 
conferred upon it, is prepared to accept the result of the com- 
b)ined wisdom of this Convention, and it is not willing to take 
any part in this contest, and therefore requests to be excused 
from voting. 



352 Official Proceedings of the 

Nevada : McLean, 6. 
New Hampshire, passed. 

New Jersey and New York announced that they de- 
clined to vote. 

When North CaroHna was reached the Chairman of 
that delegation arose and said: 

North Carolina never misses an opportunity to vote in a 
good cause. She now casts her twenty-two votes for her dis- 
tinguished son, Judge Walter Clarke. 

North Dakota : Sewall, 6. 

When Ohio was called Chairman Long of that delega- 
tion said: 

Mr. Long: While Mr. McLean personally is not a can- 
didate, my delegation insists that the forty-six votes of Ohio 
be cast for John R. McLean. 

As the Reading Clerk announced the vote Mr.CLAYPOOL, 
of Ohio, demanded the poll of the vote of the Ohio delega- 
tion, saying that he challenged the accuracy of the announce- 
ment of the vote, whereupon the Chair ordered the roll 
called, which was done, with the following result: McLean, 
34; Sewall, i; Sibley, 4; Williams (Mass.), i; Fithian, 
I ; absent, 5. 

The Chairman of the Ohio delegation announced that, 
under the unit rule, Ohio's vote would be cast for Mc- 
Lean. 

The roll call was continued as follows: 

Oregon : Pennoyer, 8. 

Pennsylvania : Sibley, 7 ; Pattison, 2 ; absent or not 
voting, 55. (William F. Harrity, of Pennsylvania^ 
requested that the delegates from Pennsylvania should ^not 
vote for him, as he was not a candidate.) 

Rhode Island : Harrity, 6; Not voting, 2. 

South CaroHna : Sibley, 18. 

South Dakota : Sewall, 8. 



Democratic National Committee. 353 

Tennessee: Boies, 9; Sibley, 7; Williams (of ]Massa- 
chusetts), 4; Daniel, 4. 
Texas : Bland, 30. 



When Utah was called the Chairman of her delesration 



to' 



said: 



Utah lays, as a tribute to the feet of one whom she honors,, 
her six votes for John W. Daniel, of Virginia. 

Vermont : McLean, 4; not voting, 4. 
Virginia : Clarke, 24. 
Washington : Lewis, 8. 
West Virginia : Williams, 12. 

Wisconsin was next called, General Bragg was recog- 
nized. He said: 

General Bragg : Wisconsin declines to vote. 

Delegate White, of Wisconsin, stated that their delega- 
tion cast five votes for Sibley. This was announced by 
the Secretary, and the call of the States was proceeded with.. 

Wyoming : Sibley, 6. 

Alaska : Declined to vote. 

Arizona : Williams, 6. 

District of Columbia : McLean, 6. 

New Mexico : Williams, 6. 

Oklahoma : White, 1 ; Sibley, 4; McLean, 1. 

Indian Territory : Fithian, 1 ; Sibley, 6. 

Under the unit rule the six votes of Indian Territory- 
were cast for Sibley. 

Delegate Miller, of Oregon, was recognized by the 
Chair and said: 

Mr. Miller : I rise for the purpose of changing the eight 
votes of Oregon from Pennoyer to that distinguished states- 
man from Pennsylvania, Joseph C. Sibley. 

The State of Georgia was then called and the Chairman 
of her delegation said: 

Georgia has instructed me to vote for a man for Vice-Presi-- 

23 



854 Official Pkoceedings of the 

dent who ought to be nominated by this Convention by accla- 
mation, Richard P. Bland. 

The Chairman of the Massachusetts delegation said: 

I am directed by the delegation of Massachusetts to state 
that she unanimously leaves the fortune of her distinguished 
son in the hands of this Convention. 

The Chair inquired if the State of Nebraska still de- 
clined to vote, and the Chairman of the delegation stated 
that Nebraska still desired to be passed. 

The Chair recognized Mr. Steele, of South Dakota, 
who announced that his State wished to change her eight 
votes from Arthur P. Sewall, of Maine, to William F. 
Harrity, of Pennsylvania. 

The Chair ordered the Secretary to make the change 
requested. 

Mr. Powers, of Utah : Utah desires to change its votes 
from Daniel to Bland. 

The Chair : It is impossible to make changes at present. 
The Chair will recognize the gentleman later on if he desires 
it. The Clerk will now announce the result of the first ballot. 

The Secretary announced the result of the first ballot as 
follows: 

Sibley ...168 

McLean Ill 

Sewall ' 100 

Williams, of Massachusetts 76 

Bland 62 

Clarke 50 

Williams, of Illinois 22 

Blackburn. , ' 20 

Boies 20 

Harrity 21 

Lewis , 11 

Daniel , . . . . 11 

Pattison 1 



Democratic National Convention. 855 

Fithian 1 

Teller 1 

White 1 

Absent and not voting 258 

Whole number of votes cast 682 

Necessary to choice 455 

A. Van Wagenen: Mr. Chairman. 

The Chair : The gentleman from Iowa — for what pur- 
pose does he rise? 

Mr. Van Wagenen : Gentlemen of the Convention. I 
am instructed by the delegation from Iowa to say to you that 
we do not deem the nomination of Governor Boies for Vice- 
President wise, and therefore we withdraw his name. Let no 
man construe this as abating one particle from our zeal in ihe 
great cause. Let no man think, in saying this that Governor 
Boies is not willing to-day to make all the sacrifices necessary, 
but after carefully considering this matter, we want to say to 
you that we do not think it wise to permit his nomination for 
the second place, and therefore, gentlemen, thanking you 
kindly for the compliment you have conferred upon him by 
your vote, I will ask you not further to consider his name, but 
to elect one who will add to your ticket and who will be ac- 
ceptable to the Convention. 

The Secretary then commenced the calling of the roll 
for the second ballot, beginning with Alabama. When 
that State was called Tennent Lomax arose in his place 
and said: 

Mr. Lomax : On behalf of the unterrified Democracy of 
the great State of Alabama I desire to cast her vote in this 
Convention for a gentleman whose addition to the ticket will 
make victory certain in November. I propose to cast that vote 
for a distinguished gentleman whose name has not been pre- 
sented as a candidate to this Convention, and whose delegates 
now are willing that his name should be presented. 

A. D. Smith, of Minnesota: Mr. Chairman, I rise to a 
point of order. No speechmaking is in order during the call 
of the ballot. 



356 Official Proceedings of the 

The Chair : The Chair decides the point of order well 
taken. 

Mr. LoMAX, unmindful of the ruling of the Chair, con- 
tinued : But the great Democratic party has a right to call 
upon any of its servants to serve it, and I cast the vote of the 
State of Alabama for that man whose name means 16 to 1,. 
Richard P. Bland, of Missouri. 

Then the roll call proceeded thus: 

Arkansas, 16 votes for Bland. 

California, 18 votes for Bland. 

Colorado, 8 votes for John R. McLean. 

Connecticut, 2 votes for William F. Harrity, of Penn- 
sylvania, 10 not voting. 

Delaware, 3 votes for William F. Harrity, 1 vote for 
Bland, 2 not voting. 

Florida, 8 votes for Bland. 

Georgia, 26 votes for Bland. 

Idaho, 6 for Bland. 

Illinois, 48 for Sibley. 

Indiana, 15 for Bland, 15 for McLean. 

Iowa, passed. 

Kansas, 20 for Bland. ' 

Kentucky, passed. 

Louisiana, 16 for McLean. • 

Maine, 8 for Sewall, 4 not voting. 

Maryland, 5 for McLean, 11 absent and not voting. 

Massachusetts, 9 for Williams, of Massachusetts, and 21 
absent and not voting. 

Michigan, 28 for McLean. 

Minnesota, 5 for Sibley, 6 for McLean, 2 for Sewall, 
6 absent. 

Mississippi, 18 for Bland, 

Missouri, passed. 

Montana, 6 for Bland. 

Nebraska, passed. 

Nevada, 6 for Bland. 

New Hampshire, passed. 

New Jersey, declined to vote. 



Democratic National Convention. 857 

New York, declined to vote. 
North Carolina, 22 for Clarke. 
North Dakota, 6 for Sewall. 

When Ohio cast its forty-six votes for McLean, Mr. 
Claypool, of that state, again challenged the vote, but the 
Chairman stated that under the unit rule the vote would be 
cast for McLean. 

The roll call then continued: 

Oregon, 4 for Bland, 4 for Sibley. 

Pennsylvania, 5 for Sibley, 2 for Bland, 1 for Pattison, 
56 absent or declining to vote. 

When Rhode Island was called Chairman Richardson 
stated to the Convention: 

Mr. Richardson : The Chairman of the Rhode Island dele- 
gation called upon the Chair a few moments ago and said that 
the delegation was compelled to leave the hall to take its train 
returning home, but he authorized the present occupant of the 
Chair to cast the vote of that state. If there be no objection 
the Chair will name the gentleman for whom they authorized 
him to cast the vote. He is William F. Harrity, of Penn- 
sylvania. 

There being no objection, Chairman Richardson cast 
the eight votes of Rhode Island for William F. Harrity. 
Then the call proceeded thus: 

South Carolina, 18 for Sibley. 

South Dakota, 8 for William F. Harrity. 

Tennessee, passed. 

Texas, 39 for Bland. 

Utah, 6 for Bland. 

Vermont, 4 for Bland, 4 not voting. 

Virginia, 24 for Bland. 

When Washington was called, Mr. White, of that State, 
said: 

Mr. White : Washington, unfortunately, is divided on 
this question through the influence of the gold bugs of this 
Convention. She casts — 



858 Official Proceedings of the 

At this point the Chair ruled that debate was out of 
order. Mr. White thereupon said: 

Mr. White : Washington casts three votes for Bland 
and five for Sewall. 

West Virginia, 12 for Bland. 

Wisconsin, 3 for BlAnd, 8 for Sibley, 19 not voting. 

Wyoming, 6 for Bland. 

Alaska, not voting. 

Arizona, 6 for Bland. 

District of Columbia : McLean, 6. 

New Mexico: Bland, 6. 

Oklahoma: Bland, 6. 

Indian Territory : Bland, 6. 

The Chair then directed that the States that were 
passed be called, which was done, with the following result: 

Iowa : Sibley, 26. 

Kentucky: McLean, 16; Williams, of Massachusetts, 
1 ; Sibley, 1 ; Bland, 2 ; Sewall, 6. 

When Missouri was called Governor Stone arose and 
said: 

The State of Missouri presented the name of one of its 
citizens for the presidential nomination. In the wisdom of 
this Convention another was selected. The delegation has 
no authority to present the name of that citizen for the second 
place upon the ticket. If it is done by this Convention it 
must be done of its own accord, without solicitation by the 
Missouri delegation. Missouri casts ten votes for Sewall, 
five for Sibley, six for Williams, of Massachusetts, and thir- 
teen for Williams, of Illinois. 

The call of the passed States was then ended by Ten- 
nessee casting twenty-four votes for Bland. 

The Secretary announced the result of the second bal- 
lot as follows: 



Democratic National Convention.- 359 

Sibley 113 

McLean 158 

Sewall 37 

Williams, of Massachusetts 13 

Bland 294 

Clarke 22 

Williams, of Illinois , 15 

Harrity , 21 

Pattison 1 

* Not voting 255 

No candidate having received the necessary vote, the 
Chairman ordered the Secretary to call the roll for a third 
ballot, when Amos Cummings, of New York, ascended the 
platform and the Chair requested the Secretary to suspend 
the roll call while he introduced Mr. Cummings. 

The Chair: The Chair thinks that the roll call should 
be suspended that he may present to the Convention Amos J. 
Cummings, member of the famous Tammany Society of New 
York, who \vill read a telegram of interest to the Convention. 

Mr. Cummings then presented the following: 

Meadville, Pa., July 11. 
Amos Cummings : Please, do not permit my name to be 
presented. I so instructed my friends yesterday. 

Joseph C, Sibley. 

The Secretary then called the roll of States by the third 
ballot with the following result: 

Alabama : Bland, 22. 

Arkansas: Sewall, 16. 

California : Sewall, 18. 

Colorado : Sew^all, 8. 

Connecticut : No response. 

Delaware: Harrity, 3; Sewall, 1; not voting, 2. 

Florida : Sewall, 8. 

Georgia : Bland, 26. 

Idaho : Bland, 6. 

Illinois: Sibley, 48. 



860 * Official Proceedings of the ' 

Indiana : McLean, 30. -; 

Iowa : McLean, 26. : 
Kansas : Bland, 20. 

Kentucky: McLean, 16; Bland, 8; Sewall, 7. ■ 

Louisiana : McLean, 16. l 

Maine : Sewall, 12. i 

Maryland: McLean, 5; 11 not voting. j 
Massachusetts : George Fred Williams, 9 ; 21 absent ; 

and not voting. ! 

Michigan : Sew^all, 28. ' i 
Minnesota : Sibley, 2 ; Bland, 8 ; McLean, 5 ; 8 absent. 
Mississippi : McLean, 18. 

Missouri: Bland, 84. ; 

Montana : Bland, 6. ! 
Nebraska : Excused from voting. 

Nevada: McLean, 6. ! 
New Hampshire : Passed. 
New Jersey : Declined to vote. 

New York : Declined to vote. ■ 

North Carolina : Clark, 22. j 

North Dakota : Sewall, 6. i 

Ohio : McLean, 46. ] 
Oregon : Bland, 8. 

Pennsylvania: Sewall, 4; McLean, 8 ; Pattison, 1 ; | 

declining to vote, 56. j 

Rhode Island : Harrity, 8. i 

South Carolina : Bland, 18. \ 

South Dakota : Harrity, 8. i 
Tennessee : Bland, 24. 
Texas : Bland, 80. 

Utah : John W. Daniel, 6. I 

Vermont : Bland, 4; not voting, 4. I 

Virginia : Bland, 14. i 

Washington : Bland 4; Sewall, 4. i 
West Virginia : Bland, 1 ; Williams, of Massachusetts, \ 

6 ; McLean, 5. ^ | 

Wisconsin: Bland, 4; Sewall, 1; not voting, 19. . ! 

Wyoming: Bland, 6. ^ 

Alaska: Declined to vote. 

j 

Arizona : Bland, 6. | 



Democratic National Convention. 861 

District of Columbia : McLean, 6. 
New Mexico : Bland, 6. 
Oklahoma : Sewall, 6. 
Indian Territory : Sewall, 6. 

Michigan having been passed, Mr. Hummer, of that 
State, arose and cast the twenty-eight votes of Michigan 
for McLean. 

The Clerk announced the result of the third ballot as 
follows: 

Sibley 50 

McLean 210 

Sewall 97 

Williams, of Massachusetts 15 

Bland 255 

Clarke 22 

Harrity 19 

Daniel r 6 

Pattison 1 

Absent and not voting 255 

After the announcement of the vote, the Chairman 
recognized Governor Stone, of Missouri. 

Gov. Stone : Gentlemen of the Convention : I desire, 
on behalf of Missouri, and as the friend of Mr. Bland, to 
express to you our grateful appreciation of your kindness. 
I am now in receipt of a telegram from Mr. Bland, in which 
he says substantially that he would deem it unwise and impol- 
itic to nominate both candidates from the west side of the 
Mississippi river. He directs me to say that the nomination 
of Mr. Bryan has his warm and hearty approval, and he 
thinks the nomination for the Vice-Presidency should be made 
Avith one object alone in view, and that is of strengthening 
the ticket. Accordingly, he directs me to say that he wishes 
bis name withdrawn from the consideration of this Convention 
for that purpose. 

The Chair then instructed the Clerk to call the roll for 
the fourth ballot. When Alabama was called she asked 



86i2 Official Proceedings of the 

leave to retire for consultation, and her delegates were 
permitted to do so. The call then proceeded, as follows: 

Arkansas : Sewall, 16. 
California : Sewall, 18. 
Colorado : Sewall, 8. 
Connecticut : Passed. 

When Delaware was called Chairman Richardson 
announced that he had been instructed to cast Delaware's 
vote, and, if there was no objection, would do so. He 
announced the vote as follows: Harrity, 3; Sewall, i; 
not voting, 2. 

Florida : Sewall, 8. 
Georgia : McLean, 26. 
Idaho : Sewall, 6. 
Illinois : Passed. 
Indiana : McLean, 30. 
Iowa: McLean, 26. 
Kansas : Sewall, 20. 
Kentucky: Passed. 
Louisiana : McLean, 16. 
Maine : Sewall, 12. 

When Maryland was called, Delegate-at-Large War- 
field said: 

Mr. Warfield : The Chairman of our delegation said 
that they were compelled to go because they had made their 
arrangements, and the delegates have instructed me posi- 
tively to vote for Mr. McLean. In addition to that, four 
delegates instructed me to use my best judgment for them. 
Believing it is the best thing for the party to nominate Mr. 
McLean, I now declare nine votes from Maryland for Mr. 
McLean, seven absent and not voting. 

The roll call then continued as follows: 

Massachusetts : Williams, of Massachusetts, 9 ; Mr. 
Williams not voting for himself ; twenty absent and not 
voting. 



Democratic National Convention. 86B^ 

Michigan : ^McLean, 28. 

Minnesota : McLean, 11 ; absent and not voting, 7. 

Mississippi : McLean, 18. 

Missouri : Sewall, 34. 

Montana: Sewall, 4; McLean, 2. 

Nebraska : Passed. 

Nevada : McLean, 6. 

New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York each 
decHned to vote. 

When North Carolina was reached the Chairman of the 
delegation said: 

We of this wilderness wish to do what North Carolina does — 
vote for Walter Clark, of North Carolina. We cast twenty- 
two votes for Clark. 

North Dakota : Sewall, 6. 
Ohio : McLean, 46. 

When the Secretary called the State of Oregon the 
Chairman of the delegation said: 

Eight votes for that distinguished Democrat that believes 
in the free coinage of silver at 16 to 1, Air. "Se^vall, of 
Maine. " 

Pennsylvania: Sewall, 8 ; McLeAxV, 4; Pattison, 1 ; 
absent or declining to vote, 56. 
Rhode Island : Harrity, 8. 
South Carolina : Sew^all, 18. 
South Dakota : Sewall, 8. 

The State of Tennessee was passed, the members of the 
delegation being engaged in consultation. 

' Texas : Daniel, 80. 
Utah : Daniel, 6. 

Vermont : McLean, 4 ; not voting, 4. 
Virginia : Passed. 
Washington : Sewall, 8. 
West Virginia : Daniel, 12. 
Wisconsin : Sewall, 5 ; 19 not voting. 



364 Official Proceedings of the 

Wyoming : Daniel, 6. 

Alaska : Passed. 

Arizona : Seavall, 6. 

District of Columbia: McLean, 6. 

New Mexico : McLean, 3 ; Sewall, 3. 

Oklahoma : Sewall, 6. 

Indian Territory : Se\vall, 6. 

Alabama : Sewall, 22. 

When the State of Illinois was called by the Secretary, 
Mr. FiTHiAN said: 

Mr. FiTHiAN : Mr. Chairman, this Convention cannot 
afford to nominate John R. McLean, and I challenge the vote 
of this delegation. 

The Chair : The gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Fithian, 
challenges the vote of Illinois, and the Secretary will call the 
roll of that State. 

The Secretary then called the roll. 

When H. W^. Masters' name was called he said: 

Mr. Masters : Mr. Chairman, I have voted for Seav- 
all and I was for him, but I bow to the will of the majority. 
I cast my vote for John R. McLean. 

When A. M. Bell's name was called he said: 

Mr. Bell : While my preference was for Sewall, I am 
with the majority, and I cast my vote for John R. McLean. 

The Clerk announced the result of the poll as, 28 for 
McLean, 10 for Sewall, 10 absent, and the Chairman 
stated that under the unit rule the vote of Illinois was cast 
for Mr. McLean. 

California then announced through its Chairman that the 
vote of that state should be corrected, and should be 16 for 
Sewall and 2 for McLean. 

The Secretary then called the states which had been 
passed when they were called in their order. The call 
resulted as follows: 



Democratic National Convention. 865 

Kentucky: McLean, 16; Sewall, 10. 
Tennessee : Sewall, 24. 

' New Mexico announced a change in her vote as follows: 

Sewall, 6. 

Virginia, which had been passed, recorded her vote as 
follows: Clark, 24. 

During the count of the ballot the Secretary made the 
following announcements: 

Mr. Chairman : The Coliseum Garden Amusement. Com- 
pany desires to extend to you and the National Committeemen 
and Delegates an invitation to attend this evening's perform- 
ance of " America" at which they will display the likeness of 
William Jennings Bryan. All delegate badges will be rec- 
ognized at the gate, also badges of National Committeemen. 

C. J. Smith (Nebraska) : In connection with the invita- 
tion just extended, I desire to inquire how we poor unfortu- 
nate fellows who have no badges can get in ? 

The vote was announced by the Secretary as follows: 

McLean 296 

Sewall 261 

Williams, of Massachusetts 9 

Clark. 46 

Harrity 11 

Daniel 54 

Pattison 1 

Total votes cast 678 

Absent and not voting 250 

Necessary for choice 458 

As soon as the result of the fourth ballot had been 
announced Mr. McConnell, of Ohio, obtained recognition 
and stated that the Ohio delegation had a telegram from 
Mr. McLean, which they wished to read to the Conven- 
- tion. Mr. Long, of the Ohio delegation, came forward and 
spoke as follows: 

Mr. Long : Two telegrams have been received by the 



866 Official Proceedings of the 

Ohio delegation from Mr. McLean. They state substantially 
what I stated here in the opening — that he is not a candidate, 
but that you may have the exact words, I read his telegram. 
He speaks for himself, not for the Ohio delegation : " Any 
vote cast for me for Vice-President is against my expressed 
wish and without my authority. Please so announce to the 
Convention." That is Mr. McLean ; that is not the Ohio 
delegation statement. 

The Chairman then ordered the Secretary to call the 
roll of States for a fifth ballot. When Alabama was called, 
Chairman Lomax of that delegation, said: 

Mr. LoMAx : Upon a poll of the vote of the State 
of Alabama three votes were cast for Mr. McLean, but under 
the operation of the unit rule I cast twenty-two votes for Mr. 
Sewall, of Maine. 

The Secretary then proceeded with the roll call. 

Arkansas : Sew^all, 16. 

California: Sewall, 16; McLean, 2. 

Colorado : Sew^all, 8. 

Connecticut : Declined to vote. 

Delaware : Harrity, 8 ; Sewall, 1 ; not voting, 2. 

Florida : Sewall, 8. 

Georgia : Sewall, 26. 

Idaho : Sewall, 6. 

Illinois: McLean, 48. 

Indiana : Sewall, 80. 

Mr. Menzies (of Indiana) : If Mr. McLean had not 
authorized the withdrawal of his name, Indiana would have 
cast thirty votes for him, but now it casts thirty votes for Mr. 
Sewall. 

Iowa : Sewall, 26. 

Kansas : Sewall, 20. 

Kentucky: McLean, 18; Sewall, 18. 

Louisiana : Sewall, 16. 

Maine : Sewall, 12. 

Maryland : McLean, 5 ; Sewall, 4; not voting, 7. 



Democratic National Convention. 867 

Massachusetts : Williams, of Massachusetts, 9; 21 absent 
:and not voting. 

Michigan : Sewall, 28. 

Minnesota : Sewall, 11 ; not voting, 7. 

Mississippi : McLean, 18. 

Missouri : Sewall, 34. 

Montana ; Sewall, 6. 

Nebraska : Passed. 

Nevada : Sewall, 6. 

New Hampshire : Not voting. 

New Jersey : Declines to vote. 

New York : Declines to vote. 

North Carolina was called and the Chairman of the dele- 
gation said: 

Mr. Chairman, the delegation of North Carolina is not 
committed to the East in this vote ; and we believe that the 
name of a Southern or a Western man should be presented 
here ; I cast the vote of this delegation for Mr. Clarke, of 
North Carolina. 

North Dakota : Sewall, 6. 

Ohio being called, Mr. Long said: 

Mr. Long : Mr. Chairman, notwithstanding the telegram 
read from Mr. McLean, the delegation from Ohio casts its 46 
A^^otes for John R. McLean. 

Oregon : Sewall, 8. 

Pennsylvania: Sewall, 5; McLii:AN,l; Pattison, 1 : 
57 absent or declining to vote. 
Rhode Island : Harrity, 8. 
South Carolina: Sewall, 18. 
South Dakota : Sewall, 8. 
Tennessee : Sewall, 24. 
Texas : Daniel, 30. 
Utah : Daniel, 6. 

Vermont : McLean, 4; 4 not voting. 
Virginia : Clark, 24. 
Washington : Sewall, S. 
West Virginia : ' Seavall, 12. 
Wisconsin : Sewall, 4; McLean, 1; 19 not voting. 



368 Off'icial Proceedings of the 

Wyoming : Sewall, 6. 

Alaska: Not voting. 

Arizona : Sewall, 6. 

District of Columbia : McLean, 6. 

Territory of New Mexico : Sewall, 6. 

Oklahoma : Sewall, 6. 

Indian Territory : Sewall, 6. 

At the conclasion of the roll call, and before the tellers 
could announce the result, Mr. Donovan, of Illinois, was 
recognized by the Chair and said: 

Mr. Donovan : Mr. Chairman : The State of Illinois^ 
which proposes to assist in the election of a President on the 
8d of next November with its electoral vote, desires now to 
assist in the nomination of the Vice-President by changing its 
forty-eight votes from McLean to Sewall. 

Mr. James, of Kentucky, stated that the vote of his 
State was changed and cast for Sewall. 

Mr. Sloan, of Ohio, announced that the vote of his 
State was changed and cast in favor of the man from Maine, 
when he movedthat the nomination of Mr. Sewall be made 
unanimous. 

Maryland and Mississippi were the next to change their 
votes, Maryland giving 9 and Mississippi 18 to Mr. Sewall. 

Nebraska then cast its first vote for the Vice-Presidency 
and recorded its 16 votes for Sewall. Mr. Hammill, of 
Michigan, moved that the nomination be made unanimous. 

The Reading Clerk said : I am requested by the Chair to 
announce that the gentlemen who have been appointed upon 
the committee to notify the Presidential and Vice-Presidential 
candidates of their nominations are to meet immediately upon 
the adjournment of the Convention in the room of the Com- 
mittee upon Resolutions ; and also requested to announce that 
the National Committee, both the old and the new, instead 
of meeting at 8 o'clock this afternoon, will meet at 5 o'clock 
this evening at the Palmer House. 

Virginia asked to have her vote changed to Sewall,, 
and Mr. Baumgarden, of Ohio, moved on behalf of the 



Democratic National Convention. 369 

Ohio delegation that the rules be suspended and that the 
nomination of Mr. Sewall be made by acclamation. 

The Chairman then put the motion to make the nomi- 
nation unanimous, and the motion was adopted by the States 
which voted. New York, New Jersey, New Hampshire and 
Alaska not voting. 

The announcement by the Chair of the nomination of 
Mr. Sewall was made at 3 o'clock. 

Senator Jones, of Arkansas, was recognized by the 
Chair, and said: 

I am directed by the Committee on Resolutions to present 
the following and move its adoption: 

^'' Resolved^ That the National Committee are hereby 
empowered and directed to fix the time and place for holding 
the next National Convention and that the basis of representa- 
tion herein be the same as fixed for this Convention, and in its 
discretion to select as its Chairman and members of the Execu- 
tive Committee persons who are not members of the said 
National Committee." 

The resolution was adopted. Senator Jones also 
offered the following resolution and moved its adoption: 

Resolved^ That the thanks of this Convention are hereby 
tendered to Hon. John W. Daniel, the temporary president ; 
the Hon. Stephen M. White, the permanent president, and 
Hon. James D. Richardson, the acting president, and the 
other officers of the Convention for their services. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 

The following was also offered by Senator Jones and. 
adopted : 

Resolved^ That the thanks of this Convention be hereby 
tendered to the Secretary and the other Secretaries of this- 
Convention. 

Senator Jones also offered the following resolution on 
behalf of the Committee on Resolutions: 

Resolved^ That the official stenographer be directed to 
prepare the proceedings of this Convention to be printed in 
proper form, and that the National Committee cause a 
suitable number of copies to be distributed to the delegates to 

24 



870 Official Proceedings of the 

this Convention, and to such ' others as may be entitled to 
receive tliem. 

The Chairman announced that there being no objection, 
the resolution would be agreed to. The Chair then recog- 
nized Senator Blanchard, of Louisiana, who said: 

Senator Blanchard : I move that the thanks of this 
Convention and the individual delegates thereto be extended 
to the city and to the people of Chicago for many courtesies 
received at their hands, and that we vote Chicago the greatest 
convention city on earth. 

This resolution was adopted. 

The Chair then recognised Hon. Barton Smith, of 
Ohio, who said: 

Mr. Smith : I move that Hon. William F. Harrity, 
Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, be included 
in the first resolution, thanking the officers of the Convention, 
and that the thanks of the Convention are due, and are 
hereby tendered to him, for his faithful services to the party. 

This motion was unanimously adopted. 

The following resolution was thereupon offered by Sena- 
tor Jones, of Arkansas, on behalf of all the friends of free 
silver in the ConveMion : 

Resolved^ That the thanks of this Convention are due and 
are hereby tendered to Hon. William F. Harrity, Chair- 
man of the National Committee, for the able and impartial 
manner in which he has discharged his duties while presiding 
over the deliberations of this Convention. 

This resolution was unanimously adopted. 
The Chair then recognized Mr. Ladd, of Illinois, who 
said : 

Mr. Ladd : I move you, sir, as the sense of this Conven- 
tion, that the next National Convention abolish the two- 
thirds rule, and let the majority rule in all things. 

The Chair : This Convention can make no rules for 
subsequent conventions. 

The following tables show the vote in detail of the five 
ballots for Vice-President : 



Democratic National Convention. 



371 



FIBST BALLOT. 



STATES 


< 

O 

H 


>< 

w 
ca 

c}5 


z 

< 
w 




< 




Q 
< 

pq 


< 



CO 


z 

< 


U5 

w 



>< 

5 

< 


w 


a 

z 
< 

Q 


z 



H 
H 

< 

0^ 


z 

< 

X 








Alabama 

Arkansas 

California. 


22 

16 

18 

8 

12 

6 

8 

26 

6 

48 

30 

26 

20 

26 

16 

12 

16 

30 

28 

18 

18 

34 

6 

16 

.6 

8 

20 
72 
22 
6 
46 
8 

64 
8 

18 

8 

24 

30 

6 

8 

24 

8 

12 
24 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 
6 


i 




4 
16 
10 

4 

'8 


4 
.... 

4 




4 


3 




4 

'7 

"9 


'2 

3 

'6 
'8 


3 
"8 


' 


'2 


i 






.... 


Colorado 

Connecticut 

Delaware 

Florida 


26 
6 


22 


""4 
"i5 


'4 

ie 


"io 

2 


Georgia 

Idaho . . ... 




Illinois 


48 

2 

14 

2i 

io 

'6 

'8 

7 

18 

'7 


is 

5 

28 
'6 
46 


'4 

i2 

*2 

18 

10 

6 

'6 


'"i 
11 

20 
1 

'"3 

'"'4 




Indiana 




Iowa 


1 

"i 






Kansas 




Kentucky 

Louisiana 

Maine 




Maryland 

Massachusetts . . 

Michigan 

Minnesota 

Mississippi 

Missouri 

Montana 

Nebraska 

Nevada 

New Hampshire 

New Jersey 

New York 

North Carolina... 
North Dakota. . . 
Ohio 


11 

30 
""*5 

"'ie 

' '8 
20 
72 


Oregon 




Pennsylvania .. . 
Rhode Island . . . 
South Carolina. . 
South Dakota... . 
Tennessee 


55 

2 


Texas 


30 


24 








Utah 


"5 
6 


'4 

'6 
'1 


'4 
6 

100 


■"12 

'"6 
""6 




Vermont 

Virginia 

W^ashington 

West Virginia. . . 

Wisconsin 

Wyoming 

Alaska 


4 

"i9 
'"6 


Arizona 




Dist.of Columbia 
New Mexico. . . , 

Oklahoma 

Indian Territory. 




Total 


930 


163 


111 


76 


62 


50 


22 


20 


20 


19 


11 


11 


2 


1 


1 


ll 260 



372 



Official Proceedings of the 



SECOND BALLOT. 



STATES 


>< 

a 

M 

c?5 


z 
< 

(J 


►J 
< 

Ed 
C/5 


w 


Q 
Z 
< 


<: 


S 


a: 
< 


z 

o 

■ H 
H 

< 


O H 

z z 

" w 

o ca 
> < 

1° 


Alabama 










22 
16 
18 












Arkansas 




















California 




















Colorado 




8 
















Connecticut 
















2 
3 




10 


Delaware 










1 

8 

26 

6 






2 


Florida 
















Georgia 




















Idaho 




















Illinois 


48 


















Indiana 


15 






15 












Iowa 


26 
















Kansas 








20 

2 












Kentucky 


1 


16 
16 


6 














Louisiana 












Maine 




8 














4 


Maryland 




5 














11 


Massachusetts 






9 












21 


Michigan 




28 

6 

18 
















Minnesota 


4 


2 






.... 
.... 








6 


Mississippi 
















Missouri 


5 


10 


6 






13 








jVIontana 


6 










Nebraska 




















16 


Nevada 










6 












New Hampshire 


















8 


New Jersey 




















^0 


New \ ork 




1 














72 


North Carolina 










22 










North Dakota 






"6 














Ohio 




46 
















Oregon 


4 

5 






4 

2 












Pennsylvania 
















56 


Rhode Island 












8 




South Carolina 


18 


















South Dakota 














8 






Tennessee 










24 

30 
6 
4 

24 
3 

12 
3 
6 






























Utah 




















Vermont 
















4 


Virginia 




















Washington 






5 














West Virginia 
















Wisconsin 


2 
















19 


Wyoming 








. . . 




























6 


Arizona 










6 
6 
6 
6 
6 












District of Columbia. . . . 




















New Mexico 




















Oklahoma 




















Indian Territory 










































Total 


113 158 


37 


16 294 


22 


13 


21 1 


255 



Democratic National Convention. 



873 



third ballot. 



states 


Sibley 
McLean 


►J 
< 

C/2 




Q 
z 

< 
►J 


< 


>< 

S 

(ii 
< 

X 


a 

5 
< 


z 

c 

< 

Oh 


si 
il 


Alabama 








22 












Arkansas 


1 


16 

18 
8 














California 


j 
















Colorado 


, 
















Connecticut 


















12 


Delaware 






1 

8 








3 






2 


Florida 


















Georgia . . 








26 
6 












Idaho 




















Illinois 


48 


















Indiana 


30 

26 


















Iowa 




















Kansas 








20 
3 












Kentucky 




16 
16 


7 














Louisiana 














IVIaine 




12 
















Maryland 




5 


"9 












11 


Massachusetts 












21 


Michigan 




28 

5 

18 
















Minnesota 


2 






3 










8 


Mississippi 
















INIissouri 








34 
6 












Montana 




















Nebraska 


















16 


Nevada 




6 


















New Hampshire 


















8 


New Jersey 




















20 


New \ ork 




















72 


North Carolina 












22 




.... 






North Dakota 






6 














Ohio 




46 
















Oregon 








8 












Pennsylvania 




3 


4 










1 


56 












8 






South Carolina 










18 






South Dakota 












8 








Tennessee 










24 
30 










"Texas 




















Utah 














6 






\ ermont 










4 

24 
4 
1 
4 
6 








4 


Virginia 




















Washington 






4 
■**2 


"q 












West Virginia 




5 












Wisconsin 












19 


Wyoming 


































6 


Arizona 










6 












District of Columbia. . . . 




















New Mexico 










6 












Oklahoma 






6 
6 














Indian Territory 








































Total 


50 


^10 


97 


15 2,55 


^2 


19 


6 


1 


255 























374 



Official Proceedings of the 



FOURTH BALLOT. 



STATES 


z 

< 

o 


►J 
< 

w 




< 
O 


H 

2 
< 


w 

z 

< 


z 

o 

en 

H 

H 
< 


§5 

m o 

<: z 


Alabama 




22 
16 
16 

8 














Arkansas 
















California 


2 














Colorado 














Connecticut 














12 


Delaware 




1 

8 






3 






9, 


Florida 










Georgia 


26 














Idaho 


6 














Illinois 


48 
30 
26 














Indiana 
















Iowa 
















Kansas 


20 
10 














Kentucky 


16 
16 














Louisiana 














Maine 


12 














Maryland 


9 












J 


Massachusetts 




9 










21 


jMichigan 


28 
11 

18 




























7 


Mississippi 


















34 
4 














Montana 


2 














Nebraska 












16 


Nevada ... 


6 






























8 


New Jersey . . 
















20 


New York . 
















72 


North Carolina 








22 














6 












Ohio 


46 














Oregon ... 


8 
3 














Pennsylvania 


4 






■"8 




1 


56 






South Carolina. 




18 

8 

24 








South Dakota . . 
















Tennessee .... 
















Tpva <i 










30 
6 






Utah 


















4 












4 


Virfinia 






24 














8 












West Virginia 










12 










5 








19 


W^vomiTiP" 










6 


















6 


A ri/mia 




6 
















6 














Npw TVTpxiro 


6 
6 
6 














0]cl;^lioma^ 
















Indian Tprritorv 


















298 














Total 


261 


9 


46 


11 


54 


1 


250 



Democratic National Convention. 



375 



FIFTH BALLOT, 



STATES 


z 

< 
w 

1-1 

o 


< 

w 


U2 ^- 


< 
u 


>< 
2 

< 

X 


w 

< 
Q 


z 

o 

CO 

H 
< 

a, 


§5 

M O 

<: z 


Alabama 




22 

16 

16 

8 














Arkansas 
















California 


2 














Colorado 














Connecticut 














1^ 


Delaware 




1 

8 
26 

6 
48 
30 
26 
20 
26 
16 
12 

9 






3 






9, 


Florida 










Georgia 
















Idaho 
















Illinois 
















Indiana 












. 




Iowa * , 
















Kansas 
















Kentucky 
















Louisiana 
















Maine 
















Maryland : 














7 


Massachusetts 




9 










21 


Michigan 




28 
11 












Minnesota 














7 


Mississippi 


18 














Missouri 


34 
6 














Montana 
















Nebraska . 














16 


Nevada 




6 














New Hampshire 














8 


New Jersey 
















20 


New York 
















72 


North Carolina 








22 










North Dakota 




6 

46 

8 

5 












Ohio 
















Oregon - 
















Pennsylvania 


1 










1 


57 


Rhode Island 






8 






South Carolina 




18 

8 

24 












South Dakota 
















Tennessee 










.... 






Texas 










30 
6 






Utah 














Vermont 


4 














Virginia 


. . . 

24 
8 

12 
4 
6 














Washington 
















West Virginia 
















Wisconsin 


1 












19 


Wyoming 














Alaska 














6 


Arizona. . 




6 














District of Columbia 


6 














New Mexico 


6 
6 
6 














Oklahoma 
















Indian Territory , 
































Total 


32 


568 


9 


22 


11 


36 


1 


251 



876 



Official Proceedings of the 



The following are the Committees on Notification, and 
the Democratic National Committee, as handed to the 
Secretary by the delegations from the several States: 



COMMITTEE ON NOTIFICATION. 



Alabama — J. J. Willett. 
Arkansas — Paul Jones. 
California — A. Carminetti. 
Colorado— T. J. O'Donnell. 
Connecticut — (Not announced). 
Delaware — J. F. Saulsbury. 
Florida — G. B. Sparkman, 
Georgia — J. T. Hill. 
Idaho — B. N. Milliard. 
Illinois — H. W. Masters. 
Indiana — U. S. Jackson. 
Iowa — L. T. Genung. 
Kansas — Frank Bacon. 
Kentucky— John S. Garner. 
Louisiana — Victor Maubarret. 
Maine — Fred W. Plaisted. 
Maryland— John Hannibal. 
Massachusetts — James Donovan. 
Michigan — F. W. Hubbard. 
Minnesota — F. H. Voreis. 
Mississippi — R. H. Henry.. 
Missouri— Hugh J. Brady. 
Montana — Paul A. Fusz. 
Nebraska— John A. Creighton. 
Nevada — Jacob Klein. 
New Hampshire — Herbert J. Jon 



New Jersey— Gottf'd Krugger. 
New York — Elliott Danforth." 
North Carolina — Geo. F. Powell. 
North Dakota— W. N. Roach. 
Ohio — L. E. Holden. 
Oregon — Charles Nickell. 
Pennsylvania — John T. Lenahan. 
Rhode Island — Geo. W. Greene. 
South Carolina — E.P.McSweeney 
South Dakota — S. V. Arnold. 
Tennessee — John K. Shields. 
Texas — J. L. Shepard. 
Utah— Fred J. Kissell. 
Vermont — M. Magiff. 
Virginia — T. B. Murphy. 
Washington — James F. Girton. 
West Virginia — L. E. Tierney. 
Wisconsin — James E. Malone. 
Wyommg — M. L. Blake. 
Alaska — Geo. R. Tingle, 
Arizona — W. E. Jones. 
Dist. of Columbia — Geo. Killeen 
Indian Ter. — D. M. Haley. 
N. Mexico — Demetrius Chavez. 
Oklahoma — Temple Houston. 



ES. 



DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. 



Alabama — Henry D. Clayton. 
Arkansas — Thomas C. McRae. 
California — J. J. Dvvyer. 
Colorado — Adair Wilson. 
Connecticut — Carlos French, 
Delaware — R. R. Kenney, 
Florida — Samuel Pasco. 
Georgia — Clark Howell, Jr. 
Idaho — George Ainslie, 
Illinois — Thomas Gahan, 
Indiana — John G, Shanklin. 
Iowa — Charles A. Walsh. 
Kansas — J. G. Johnson. 



Kentucky — Urey Woodson. 
Louisiana — N. C. Blanchard. 
Maine — Seth C. Gordon. 
Maryland — Arthur P, Gorman. 
Massachusetts — John W. Corcoran. 
Michigan — Daniel J. Campau. 
Minnesota — Daniel W. Lawler. 
Mississippi— W. V. Sullivan. 
Missouri — W. J. Stone. 
Montana — J. J. MacHatton. 
Nebraska— Wm. H. Thompson. 
Nevada — R. P. KEATrNG, 
New Hampshire — A. W. Sulloway. 



Democratic National Convention. 



377 



New Jersey — James Smith, Jr. 
New York — Wm. F. Sheehan. 
N. Carolina— JosEPHUS Daniels. 
North Dakota— W. C. Liestikow. 
Ohio— John R. McLean. 
Oregon — J. Townsend. 
Pennsylvania — Wm. F. Harrity. 
Rhode Island— R. B. Comstock. 
S. Carolina— Benj. R.Tillman. 
South Dakota— Jas. M. Woods. 
Tennessee— J. M. Head. 
Texas— J. G. Dudley. 
Utah— A. W. McCuNE. 



Vermont — Bradley B. Smalley. 
Virginia — P. J. Otey." 
Washington — Hugh C.Wallace. 
West Virginia — J. T. McGraw. 
Wisconsin — E. C. Wall. 
Wyoming — W. H. Holliday. 
Alaska — C. D. Rogers. 
Arizona — Marcus A. Smith. 
District of Columbia — Lawrence 

Gardner. 
Indian Ter. — Thomas Marcum. 
N. Mexico— F. A. Manzanares. 
Oklahoma — White M. Grant. 



On motion of Senator Jones, of Nebraska, the Con- 
vention adjourned at 3:30 P. M., sine die. 



APPENDIX. 



DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE MEETING. 



Palmer House, Chicago, III., July 11, 1896. 

At 5 P. M., the meeting of the Democratic National 
Committee was called to order with Hon. William F. 
Harrity, of Pennsylvania, in the Chair. 

Mr. Harrity said : Gentlemen : In pursuance of the 
usual practice of having a meeting of the Committee after the 
conclusion of the work of the Convention, for the purpose of 
closing up the business of the Committee and in order that we 
may leave nothing (or, if anything, as little as possible) to 
give trouble to our successors, this meeting has been called. 

The Chair thinks it proper to add that the view of the 
Chair is that the Sub-Committee which was appointed for the 
purpose of making arrangements for this Convention shall be 
continued or consider itself continued until it closes its work, 
which is now largely a matter of the payment of bills and the 
return of the unexpended balance, if any; to the contributors 
of the fund raised for the purpose of defraying the expenses of 
the Convention. The amount raised, so far as we are able to 
judge, is ample ; and there probably will be a balance or sur- 
plus, which will be handed over to the Treasurer of the Com- 
mittee that furnished the funds to this Committee. The sub- 
scribers have had as their Treasurer, Mr. Joseph Donners- 
BERGER, of Chicago, who has been most faithful and efhcient. 
He has been industrious in the collection of the funds and has 
been successful. Although some of the subscribers were a 
little tardy, the money is now in hand so that nothing more 
need be said about that. The Secretary will present the report 
of the Sub-Committee on Arrangements for the Convention. 



882 Appendix. 

If there be any business that occurs to any of the gentlemen 
that requires the attention of the outgoing Committee, the 
Chairman will be pleased to receive and entertain any motion 
for such purpose. 

REPORT OF SUB-COMMITTEE ON CONVENTION 
ARRANGEMENTS. 

To the De7nocratic National Committee: 

Gentlemen : Your Committee appointed for the purpose 
of making the necessary arrangements for the meeting of the 
Democratic National Convention to be held at Chicago, Illi- 
nois, on Tuesday, July 7, 1896, at 12 o'clock, noon, respect- 
fully reports : 

That your Committee made suitable arrangements to have 
the Convention held in the Chicago Coliseum, a permanent 
building, which is admirably adapted for National Conven- 
tions and other large gatherings of people. The building is 
convenient of access and is capable of comfortably accommo- 
dating an audience of from 15,000 to 80,000 persons, depend- 
ing upon whether or not all of the Coliseum building is used 
for the purpose. 

The expenses, which were paid by subscriptions and con- 
tributions made by the people of Chicago, amounted to 
$88,206.68 and covered the expenditures for rent of Coliseum 
and headquarters, decorations, music, expenses of members of 
the Democratic National Committee, as well as of the mem- 
bers of the Committee of Arrangements, Sergeant-at-Arms, 
Doorkeepers, Clerks, Stenographers, Stationery, etc. All of 
the bills contracted by your Committee of Arrangements 
have been paid. Representative citizens of Chicago guaran- 
teed that a fund of not exceeding $40,000.00 would be raised 
to cover the expenses incident to the Convention ; but only the 
sum of $88,206.68, which is the exact amount of the aggre- 
gate of expenses incurred by your Committee, was paid into 
its Treasury. 

Your Committee further desires to report that it is under 
many obligations to Mr. F. E. Canda, of New York, for 
invaluable services, voluntarily and cheerfully rendered, as 



Appendix. 383 

advisory engineer and architect of the Committee. To his 
skill, industry and experience are we largely indebted for the 
excellent arrangements of the Convention hall. 

Respectfully, 

William F. Harrity, Chairman. 

Simon P. Sheerin, Secretary. 

Thomas H. Sherley. 

John G. Prather. 

Edward C. Wall. 

Ben. T. Cable. 

Hugh C. Wallace. 
July 11, 1896. 

Hon. Charles W. Blair, of Kansas, was recognized 
and said: 

Mr. Chairman : As the business of the Committee is not 
of a private character, I move that one or more of the leading 
representatives of the press be admitted to this meeting. 

An amendment to this motion was offered by Hon. 
Samuel Pasco, of Florida, "to admit all representatives of 
the press." The motion, as amended, was carried. 

The Chair then announced that the courtesies of the 
floor were extended to the representatives of the press. 

Hon. Charles W. Blair, of Kansas, then said : Mr. 
Ch-airman and Gentlemen of the committee : To me, as one 
of the oldest members of this Committee, has been delegated 
an important duty now immediately to be performed ; and I 
assure you that in the course of my life I have been called 
upon for the performance of few duties which I discharge so 
proudly and so thankfully. I need not say to those of us who 
have been associated with our distinguished Chairman for 
many years in the past, that we have not only learned to know 
him but that we have learned to love him. (Applause.) 

We honor him for his uprightness and impartiality. We 
have respected him for the stern and unflinching determination 
with which he performs the duty that falls to his lot either in 
a political or representative capacity ; and I venture the asser- 
tion that those of us who have served with him four years 



884 Appendix. 

will go back fully convinced that at no period in the future 
will there be a man occupying the distinguished position that 
he is about to resign who will be more closely identified with 
Democratic tradition and duty, and who reflects Or may 
reflect in the future more credit upon the Democratic organ- 
ization (applause), and if we had not entertained this opinion 
prior to the present Convention, I hazard nothing in asserting 
that that conviction would have been born of the.recent events 
through which we have just passed. There is no man under 
the diflicult circumstances that surround him who could have 
discharged the high duties which he discharged with more abso- 
lute and perfect impartiality than he has discharged them, 
(applause ), and whoever may be his successors (as was 
stated by the honorary presiding officer of the Convention), 
will look to him as a model and for guidance in the discharge 
of their duties. I, therefore offer this resolution : 

Resolved^ That the Democratic National Committee extend' 
to the Hon. William F. Harrity its thanks for the able, 
upright and impartial manner in which he has discharged his 
duties as Chairman of the Committee. 

And in order to spare the modesty of our presiding officer, 
I claim the privilege of putting it to the Committee myself. 
(Gen. Blair then put the question upon his resolution, where- 
upon it was unanimously adopted -by a rising vote.) 

Gen. Blair continuing, said : I am happy to notice that 
the Committee is in thorough accord with my resolution. 

Now, Mr. Chairman, I offer another resolution ; and before 
offering it, I wish to say that, whilst we are indebted to the 
Chairman of this Convention for absolute impartiality, for 
universal kindly feeling toward us, there is no man from 
whom we have received more favors than we have from the 
Secretary of the Committee. For the last eight years that 
we have been associated with him, it matters little what we 
wanted, if we did not know where to get it, all we had to do 
was to ask Secretary Sheerin and he got it for us. He seemed 
to take a great pleasure in serving the members of this Com- 
mittee, and no better man for the position will occupy it in 
the future. (Applause.) I offer the following: 

Resolved^ That this Committee extend its thanks to Hon.. 



Appendix. 385 

S. P. SiiEERiN for the able, honest and efficient manner in 
which he has discharged his duties as Secretary of this Com- 
mittee. 

The Chair : What is the pleasure of the Committee as 
to this resolution ? 

Hon. Charles S. Thomas, of Colorado, arose and said: 

Mr. Thomas : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen : I desire 
to second the motion that has just been offered, as I am anx- 
ious to second the other with all my heart. What was said 
by the gentleman from Kansas, who, I believe, is the oldest 
member in point of service upon the Committee, finds an 
answering echo in the hearts and the recollections of every 
member of this Committee. I desire especially, Mr. Chair- 
man, in seconding this motion to say in addition to what has 
already been said and so well said by the gentleman from 
Kansas, that I do not know of a single instance during the 
administration of the affairs of the Committee by your hon- 
ored self in ^vhich anything ^vas said or thought or could 
have been said or thought that would have amounted to even 
imputation or suspicion of disrespect to you, except it might 
have been the something which in the heat of debate some 
few days ago had fallen from my lips. It is, therefore, my 
duty to doubly say that I know of no instance or of any occa- 
sion under which any member of this Committee during the 
administration of its affairs by yourself or Secretary Sheerix 
which could in any wise be construed except as in the faith- 
ful discharge of a given line of duty and as pleasant and 
beautiful associations which spring up between men when 
brought together. I do not know, sir, who your successor 
will be ; but if those who shall take our places shall be half so 
fortunate in procuring a presiding officer for their Committee, 
and if the candidates can secure for the management of their 
campaign a man who will devote time, labor and ability, and 
the constant endeavor to do what is best and right, there can 
be but one result. We have had many Chairmen and Secre- 
taries of the Democratic National Committee, but none more 
deserving or more thoroughly satisfactory to all than those 

26 



386 Appendix. 

who are about to retire. I second the motion of the ofentle- 
man from Kansas. 

Hon. Henry D. Clayton, of Alabama, said: 

Mr. Chairman : Before that motion is put, I desire to say, as 
a Democrat and as a man, that no one appreciates more tlian 
I do the unswerving fidelity of our Chairman and our Secre- 
tary ; that no man appreciates more than I do their impar- 
tiality and their great ability ; and I want to say, Mr. Chair- 
man, with all my heart, feeling it in every fibre of my being, 
saturated as I am with the love for the Chairman and the Sec- 
retary of this Committee, that I want to give my hearty sup- 
port of the resolution to the Secretary, as I have for the reso- 
lution to the Chairman. (Applause.) 

The Chair : The question is on the resolution of the 
gentleman from Kansas, referring to the fidelity and efficiency 
with which the Secretary of the Committee, Hon. Simon P. 
Sheerin, of Indiana, has discharged his duties. 

The resolution was unanimously adopted by a rising 
vote. 

Hon. M. S. Tarpey, of California, said: 

Mr. Chairman, I desire to request, sir, on behalf of the 
members of this Committee, that those resolutions shall be 
spread at length in the minutes of this meeting and become a 
part of the archives of this Committee. I now^ make a motion 
to that effect. 

Unanimously adopted. 

The Chair (Mr. Harrity) then said: 

Gentlemen of the Committee : I desire to express my pro- 
found appreciation of the passage of the resolution just adopted, 
and to sincerely thank you for it. It has been my effort since 
I became associated with you as one of the members of the 
Committee, and particularly since I have had the honor and the 
pleasure of being the Chairman of your body, to so conduct 
myself, to so discharge such duties as were assigned to me or 



Appendix. 887 

that de\ ol\ed upon me as the Chairman of the Committee, as 
to merit, at least, in some degree, your approval. It is cer- 
tainly very gratifying, I hope I may say without too much 
vanity, that there is some indication that I have, at least made 
the effort and, at least, partially succeeded. It is with feel- 
ings of regret that I am obliged to part company with so 
many, certainly quite a large number, of the gentlemen who 
have been members of the Committee and who have been suc- 
ceeded by other gentlemen. Our successors, I have no doubt, 
will just as efficiently, just as ably and just as successfully 
represent their constituents and represent the Democracy as a 
National organization. It is my w4sh, my hope, it is my 
expectation that they will. I desire, gentlemen, to thank you 
cordially and kindly for this manifestation of your confidence 
and approval of my course. 

The Secretary (Mr. Sheerin) said: 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : I thank 
you one and all most sincerely for this kind expression of your 
confidence and good will. My service upon the Committee 
has been a very great pleasure to myself. It is not hard to 
work when we find the associations in any kind of labor so 
entirely agreeable as I have found them in this Committee 
from the very moment I entered it until this time. I carry 
away with me recollections of the most pleasurable char- 
acter, that will endure Avith me always. I thank you again, 
gentlemen, for your kind expressions and your generous ap- 
proval of my oflicial course. 

The Chair : The Chair thinks it would not be out of 
order to have the present Secretary of the Committee call the 
roll of States with the view of verifying the list of members 
of the new Committee, if I may so call it. The list has been 
published, and I take it that the list has been furnished to the 
officers of the Convention; but it may devolve upon the pres- 
ent Secretary to notify the members of the ne^v Committee of 
the meeting that may be called when indicated from the gen- 
tlemen who ought to be consulted about the matter of the time 
and place of such meeting. The Chair assumes that the mem- 



388 Appendix. 

bers of the new Committee, of the new Democratic National 
Committee, are not all present, and that probably the matter 
of organization, etc., will not be taken up now. 

The Chair : The Chair is requested to state that the 
members of the new Committee shall remain after this meet- 
ing shall adjourn for the purpose of, at least, a formal confer- 
ence or for such other purpose as may be deemed proper by 
that body. 

Hon. James Jeffries, of Louisiana, moved that this 
Committee do now adjourn, without day ; whereupon the 
Chair (Mr. Harrity) put the motion, which was carried, 
and then arose and declared the Committee adjourned ^//^c die. 



Appendix, 



389 



ORGANIZATION OF NEW COMMITTEE, 



The newly elected National Committee, composed of the 
following gentlemen, met for the purpose of organization. 
Hon. James K. Jones, of Arkansas, was unanimously elected 
Chairman of the Committee, with power to select a Secretary 
and a Treasurer. Mr. Jones subsequently selected Hon. 
Charles A. Walsh, member of the National Committee 
from Iowa, as Secretary, and William P. St. John, of the 
State of New York, as Treasurer of the Committee. 



DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE. 



Alabama — Henry D. Clayton, 
Arkansas — Thomas C. McRae. 
California — J. J. Dwyer. 
Colorado — Adair Wilson. 
Connecticut— Carlos French. 
Delaware — R. R, Kenney. 
Florida — Samuel Pasco. 
Georgia — Clark Howell, Jr. 
Idaho — George Ainslie. 
Illinois — Thomas Gahan, 
Indiana — John G. Shanklin. 
Iowa — Charles A. Walsh. 
Kansas — J. G. Johnson. 
Kentucky — Urey Woodson. 
Louisiana — N. C. Blanchard. 
Maine — Seth C. Gordon. 
Maryland — Arthur P, Gorman. 
Massachusetts — John W. Corcoran. 
Michigan — Daniel J. Campau. 
Minnesota— Daniel W. Lawler. 
Mississippi — W. V. Sullivan. 
Missouri — W. J. Stone. 
Montana — J. J. MacHatton. 
Nebraska — Wm. H. Thompson. 
Nevada — R. P. Keating. 
New Hampshire — A. W. Sulloway. 



New Jersey — James Smith, Jr. 
New York — Wm. F. Sheehan. 
N. Carolina — Josephus Daniels. 
North Dakota — W. C. Liestikow. 
Ohio— John R. McLean. 
Oregon — J. Townsend. 
Pennsylvania — Wm. F. Harrity. 
Rhode Island — R. B. Comstock. 
S. Carolina — Benj. R. Tillman. 
South Dakota— Jas. M. Woods. 
Tennessee — J. M. Head, 
Texas — J; G. Dudley. 
Utah— A. W. McCuNE. 
Vermont — Bradley B. Smalley. 
Virginia — P. J. Otey, 
Washington — Hugh C. Wallace. 
West Virginia— J. T. McGraw. 
Wisconsin — E. C. Wall. 
Wyoming — W, H. Holliday. 
Alaska— C, D. Rogers. 
Arizona— Marcus A, Smith. 
District of Columbia — Lawrence 

Gardner. 
Indian Ter. — Thomas Marcum. 
N, Mexico— F. A. Manzanares. 
Oklahoma— White M. Grant. 



890 Appendix. 

EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE. 

James K. Jones, Chairman. 
Thos. O. Towles, Secretary, 

Henry D. Clayton Eufaula Alabama. 

Thomas C. McRae Prescott Arkansas. 

J. J. DwYER San Francisco California. 

Adair Wilson Durango Colorado. 

Richard R. Kenney Dover .Delaware. 

Samuel Pasco Monticello Florida. 

George Ainslie Boise City Idaho, 

John G. Shanklin Evansville Indiana. 

C. A. Walsh , Ottumwa Iowa. 

Urey Woodson Owensboro Kentucky. 

N. C. Blanchard , , Shreveport Louisiana. 

Arthur P. Gorman Laurel Maryland. 

D. J. Campau Detroit Michigan. 

Wm. J. Stone Jefferson City Missouri. 

W. H. Thompson Grand Island Nebraska. 

James Smith, Jr Newark New Jersey. 

Josephus Daniels Raleigh North Carolina. 

Wm. C, Leistikow Grafton North Dakota, 

B, R. Tillman Trenton South Carolina. 

James M, Head. Nashville Tennessee. 

Peter J. Otey Lynchburg Virginia. 

E. C. Wall Milwaukee Wisconsin. 

Marcus A. Smith Phoenix Arizona, 

Lawrence Gardner Washington Dist, of Columbia. 

Thomas Marcum Muscogee Indian Territory. 

CAMPAIGN COMMITTEE. 

Chairman, Daniel J, Campau, Michigan. 
Secretary, Frank Hosford, Michigan, 

John R, McLean Cincinnati Ohio. 

Wm. J, Stone Jefferson City. Missouri, 

J. G. Johnson Peabody Kansas, 

Thos. Gahan Chicago Illinois, 

Clark Howell, Jr Atlanta Georgia, 

Wm. a. Clark Butte Montana. 

James Kerr Clearfield Pennsylvania. 



Appendix. 391 



NOTIFICATION SPEECH OF GOV. VV. J. STONE. 



Madison Square Garden, New York, / 
August 12, 1896. ) 

Mr. Chairman : 

We are here this evening to give formal notice of tiieir 
selection to the gentlemen nominated by the National Demo- 
cratic Convention as candidates for President and Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. Hitherto, by immemorial custom, the 
pleasing duty of delivering notifications of this character has 
devolved upon the permanent chairman of the National Con- 
vention acting, by virtue of his office, as chairman of the 
Notification Committee. Except for unfortunate circum- 
stances, unexpected and unavoidable, the usual custom would 
not be departed from in the present instance. I regn^t to say, 
however, that unforseen events of a personal nature have 
arisen which make it practically impossible for the Chairman 
of the Convention, the Hon. Stephen M. White, of Cali- 
fornia, to be in New York at this time. A few days since he 
telegraphed me to that effect, and did me the honor to request 
me to represent him on this occasion. W^hile I greatly appre- 
ciate the compliment conferred by this designation, I can not 
but deplore the enforced absence of the distinguished Senator 
from California, and I am directed by him to express his deep 
regret at his inability to be present and participate in the 
interesting ceremonies of this hour. 

Mr. Chairman, the Convention which assembled at Chi- 
cago on the 7th day of July last was convened in the usual 
way, under a call issued in due form by the National Demo- 
cratic Committee. There ^vas nothing out of the ordinarv in 
the manner of its assembling, and nothing in the action of the 
Committee under whose authority it was convoked to distin- 
guish it from its predecessors. It was in all respects a regular 
National Convention of the Democratic party. Every State 



392 Appendix. 

and Territory in the Union, from Maine to Alaska, were 
represented by a full quota of delegates, and I may add with 
perfect truth that a more intelligent and thoroughly representa- 
tive body of Democrats was never assembled upon the Amer- 
ican Continent. The Convention was called for two pur- 
poses : First, to formulate a platform declaratory of party 
principles, and, secondly, to nominate candidates for Presi- 
dent and Vice-President of the United States. Both these 
purposes were fully accomplished according to the usages 
that have been recognized and the methods of procedure 
which have obtained in Democratic Conventions for fifty years. 
The acts of the Convention, therefore, were the acts of the 
Democratic party. Its work was done under the sovereign 
authority of the National organization ; and that work was 
the direct outgrowth of the calm, well-matured judgment of 
the people themselves, deliberately expressed through their 
representatives chosen from among the wisest, most trusted, 
and patriotic of their fellow-citizens in all the States. 

Although all I have said is literally true, yet the fact 
remains, of which every one is conscious, that there were 
extraneous circumstances leading up to the Convention which 
attracted unusual attention to its deliberations and invested 
them with unusual importance. To such an extent vs^as this 
true that I may say without exaggeration that no other polit- 
ical convention has been assembled in this country since the 
civil war upon which public attention was riveted with such 
intensity, or in the outcome of whose deliberations not only 
the American people but the nations of the earth felt such 
deep concern. We are all familiar with the circumstances to 
which I refer. The existing National administration was 
created by the Democratic party. It is the result of the great 
victory won in 1892. The. campaign of that year was fought 
almost wholly on the tariff issue. It was a war waged against 
the excessive, monopolistic, trust-breeding schedules of the 
McKiNLEY law. The Democratic party was united almost as 
one man against that law, and thousands of those who believed 
in the policy of protection when conservatively administered 
for the public good and not for private enrichment, protested 
against this monstrous measure of extortion for individual and 
corporate emolument. Opposition to the McKinley law was 



Appendix. 

the dominant issue of that campaign, and the measure was con- 
demned by an overwhehiiing majority of the American peo- 
ple. But, Mr. Chairman, I desire to say that althougii the 
tariff was made the issue of 1892, there were thousands of 
Democrats who then beb'eved that a reform in our monetary 
system was of far greater importance than a reform in our 
revenue policies. I was among those who so believed. 
Those holding to that belief did not in anv degree underesti- 
mate the importance of the tariff issue — on the contrary, its 
importance was fully appreciated — but they believed never- 
theless that the control of our fiscal affairs by a mercenary 
combination of Wall street bankers, dominated by foreign 
influences, was more perilous to national safety and more per- 
nicious in its effect on national prosperity than all the tariffs 
the miserly hand of gluttonous greed could ^vrite. However, 
we acquiesced in the decision of our party Convention, 
accepted the issue as made, and as one man rallied with loy- 
alty and alacrity to the standard of revenue reform. We 
rejoiced in Mr. Cleveland's election, and confidently 
expected, as we had a right to, that he would bring the tariff' 
question to a speedy settlement and strip monopoly of its 
opportunity to plunder the people. But in this just expecta- 
tion we were doomed to disappointment. Instead of devot- 
ing himself to a prompt and wise solution of the important 
issue upon which he was elected, he incontinently thrust it 
aside and began, almost at the threshold of his administration, 
to exercise the great po\vers of his office to commit the coun- 
try to a financial system inaugurated by the Republican 
party, and \vhich the Democratic party had time and again 
condemned in both State and National Conventions. In the 
beginning of this attempt the masses of the people, disap- 
pointed and distressed, looked on in amazement. With 
absorbing interest and with constantly increasing resentment 
they watched the rapid development of events. As these 
events passed before them one by one in quick succession, 
and when they came to understand their full meaning and 
effect, resentment turned to wrath and protest rose into revolt. 
Then began \vithin the Democratic party one of the most 
remarkable struggles that has ever occurred in the political 
history of this country. It was a struggle for mastery 



394 Appendix. 

between the National administration and the great masses of 
plain people, who constitute the party which created that 
administration. The prize they fought for was the National 
Convention. That convention was to determine whether the 
Democratic party should abide by the traditions of the fathers 
and adhere to its ancient faith, or whether it should obsequi- 
ously abandon the principles of true Democracy and become 
a pliant agent to advance the mercenary ends of an insolent 
plutocracy. The people won. They won a glorious victory. 
The full significance of their triumph cannot be estimated at 
a glance. Suppose they had lost ; what then.? Suppose the 
Chicago Convention had followed the servile example of the 
Republican Convention ; what then? If that had happened 
what hue would the skies now reveal to the uplifted eyes of 
anxious millions.'' Would the star of hope then have risen 
luminous to the meridian or have fallen with waning light 
upon a clouded horizon? Upon what staff would the toiling 
millions in field and shop then have rested their tired hands? 
What bulwark of defense would then have stood between the 
great industrial and producing classes, who constitute the 
solid strength and safety of the State, and the combined 
aggressions of foreign money-changers and anglicized Amer- 
ican millionaires? Upon what rock would the defenders of 
the Constitution, the champions of American ideas and the 
friends of American institutions have then anchored their 
hopes for the future? The paramount question before the 
country was and is — Shall this great Republic confess finan- 
cial servitude to England, or act independently for itself? 
Shall this Government follow, or shall it lead? Shall it be a 
vassal or a sovereign ? The Republican Convention declared 
for foreign supremacy — for American subserviency. It upheld 
the British policy of a single gold standard, fraudulently fast- 
ened upon this country, and declared that we are utterly 
incapable of maintaining an independent policy of our own. 
Confessing that the gold standard is fraught with evil to our 
people, and that bimetallism is best for this Nation and for the 
world, it yet declared that we are helpless — that we must 
stand idle, while our industries are prostrated and our people 
ruined, until England shall consent for us to lift our hands in 
our own defense. To this low state has Mammon brought the 



Appendix. 895 

great party of the immortal Lincoln. For years plutocracy has 
been winding its slimy and poisonous coils around the Repub- 
lican party, and it will strangle it to death as the sea serpents 
of old strangled the Trojan priest of Neptune and his sons. 
So also it laid its foul, corroding hand on the Democratic 
party — the party of Jefferson and Jackson — and used all its 
giant strength to bend it to its purposes. Within both parties 
there was a mighty struggle for supremacy between those who 
believe in the sovereignty of the people and those who believe 
in the divinity of pelf. Upon the Republican party the hand 
of Marcus Aurelius Hanna has buckled a golden mail'and sent 
it forth dedicated to the service of plutocracy in this free land 
of ours. But in the Democratic party, thank God, the people 
were triumphant. There the clutch of the money power, 
after a tremendous conflict, was broken. The priests of Mam- 
mon were scourged from the temple, and to-day, under the 
providence of high Heaven, the old party, rejuvinated, stands 
forth, stronger and better than ever, the undaunted champion 
of constitutional liberty, popular rights, and national inde- 
pendence. The guage of battle thrown down at St. Louis was 
taken up at Chicago. Against English ideas we place Amer- 
ican ideas ; against an English policy we place an American 
policy; against foreign domination we place American inde- 
pendence ; and against the selfish control of privileged classes 
we place the sovereignty of the people. The Republican 
platform is the antithesis of the Democratic platform. One 
stands for gold monometallism, the other for gold and silver 
bimetallism. One proposes that we wait upon other nations ; 
the other that we act for ourselves. One proposes that the 
Government shall lean upon the bankers of New York and 
London ; the other that the Secretary of the Treasury shall 
stand erect, confident and fearless, and assert his power to 
protect the rights of the people and the honor the nation. 
One proposes to continue the policy of issuing bonds, the 
other to stop it. One declares for a European alliance, the 
other is a declaration for American independence. Upon 
these all-important questions issue is joined between the two 
great political parties of the Republic. Certainly there are 
other things of moment in which the people feel profound 
concern, but of all questions in the current political afiairs of 



89G Appendix. 

this day and generation the financial question rises to such su- 
preme importance that all other objects are practically ex- 
cluded from present consideration. The Chicago Convention 
declared in so many words that until this great, paramount 
issue was definitely settled, and settled right, the consideration 
of all other questions, upon which the people are seriously di- 
vided, should be postponed, or at least not pressed upon pub- 
lic or legislative attention. Around this one supreme issue 
the great battle of 1896 is to be fought. For the first time it 
has been fairly presented, without evasion or disguise. Both 
parties have taken position boldly. Both are confident and 
defiant. Between them the American people are the arbiters, 
and as such they are now to pass judgment upon the most im- 
portant question presented to them since the storm of civil 
war wrecked happy homes and left its bloody trail upon the 
land. They are to pass judgment upon a question which I 
profoundly believe effects, as no other question can, not only 
the present happiness and prosperity of the people, but the 
felicity of their children, the perpetuity of American institu- 
tions, and the well-being of all mankind. 

Mr. Chairman, in all great movements, in all concerted 
effort, when well directed, there must be leadership. A leader 
should be representative of the cause he champions. He 
should be more than that — he should be in all essential quali- 
ties, and in the highest degree, typical of those who invest 
him with the dignity and responsibility of leadership. 

The Chicago platform has been denounced as un-Demo- 
cratic and the delegates composing the Convention have been 
stigmatized as anarchists and socialists. We have heard much 
of this from a certain class of papers and individuals. On 
Saturday last in my own State an ex-Democratic, ex-Supreme 
Court Judge characterized the Chicago platform as "a bundle 
of Populistic notions, saturated brimful with socialism and 
anarchy," and at the same time an ex-Democratic corporation 
attorney of some distinction declared that American citizen- 
ship meant government "not by the unthinking, unheeding 
masses, but by the elements which are guided by judgment 
and reason." " Unthinking, unheeding masses" is very good. 
"The elements which are guided by judgment and reason" 
is extra good. It is at least a slight modification of Vander- 



Appendix. B97 

bilt's arrogant anathema, "Damn the people/' and for this 
small concession we ought no doubt to be duly grateful. 
Who composed the Chicago Convention? From the state in 
which reside the gentlemen from whom I have quoted, the 
delegation sent to that Convention was composed of farmers, 
lawyers, doctors, editors, merchants, manufacturer*^, and sev- 
eral of the most conspicuously successful business men in the 
Mississippi Valley. Among them also were eminent judges 
of high courts, vSenators of the United States, Representatives 
in Congress, and the Treasurer and Governor of the state. 
That delegation \vas chosen by one of the greatest conven- 
tions ever assembled in that State, representing all classes of 
the very best people of the Commonwealth. What was true 
of Missouri was equally true of all the States. If these men 
could not speak for the Democratic party, who could? If 
these men do not understand Democracy, who are its expo- 
nents? But these are the men who are ridiculed as an un- 
thinking, unheeding mob, who can not be trusted in the con- 
duct of public affairs, and these are the men who must give 
way to English toadies and the pampered minions of corpor- 
ate rapacity, who arrogate to themselves all the virtues and 
wisdom of the world! Sir, the man ^vho holds up to oppro- 
brium such men as constituted the Chicago Convention, who 
denounces them as cranks, anarchists, or socialists, or who in 
any respect impugns their intelligence or patriotism, does him- 
self most rank injustice if he be not a knave, a slanderer, or a 
fool. That convention did indeed represent the "masses" of 
the people — the great industrial and producing masses of the 
people. It represented the men who plow and plant, who 
fatten herds, who toil in shops, who fell forests, and delve in 
mines. But are these to be regarded with contumely and ad- 
dressed in terms of contempt? Why, sir, these are the men 
who feed and clothe the nation ; whose products make up the 
sum of our exports ; who produce the wealth of the Republic ; 
who bear the heaviest burdens in times of peace ; who are 
ready always to give their life-blood for their coun- 
try's flag — in short, these are the men whose sturdy arms 
and faithful hands uphold the stupendous fabric of our civili- 
zation. They are the bravest and the tenderest, the truest and 
the best. These are the men who spoke at Chicago in tones 



898 Appendix. 

that rang out clear, and high, and strong. They were in 
earnest, and did not mean to be misunderstood. It was the 
voice of true Democracy. It was also the voice of deep con- 
viction, spoken without fear. They demanded what they 
want, and they mean to have it. They did not go to Wall 
street for their principles, nor over the sea for their inspira- 
tion. Their principles ^vere inherited from the fathers and 
their inspiration sprang from an unconquerable love of coun- 
try and of home. 

For a leader they chose one, of their own — a plain man of 
the people. His whole life and life work identify him, in 
sympathy and interest, with those who represent the great in- 
dustrial forces of the country. Among them he was born and 
reared, and has lived and wrought all the days of his life. To 
their cause he has devoted all the splendid powers with which 
God endowed him. He has been their constant and fearless 
champion. They know him, and they trust him. Suave, yet 
firm ; gentle, yet dauntless ; warm-hearted, yet deliberate ; 
confident and self-poised, but without vanity ; learned in 
books and statecraft, but without pedantry or pretense ; a 
superb orator, yet a man of the greatest caution and method ; 
equipped with large experience in public affairs, true to his 
convictions, true to himself, and false to no man, William 
J. Bryan is a model American gentleman and a peerless 
leader of the people. This man is our leader. Under his 
banner and guided by his wisdom we will go forth to conquer. 
Let us rally everwhere, on hilltops and in the valleys, and 
strike for homes, our loved ones, and our native land. I have 
do doubt of victory. It is as sure to come as the rising of the 
sun. And it will come like a sunburst, scattering the mists, 
and the nation, exultant and happy, will leap forward like a 
giant refreshed to that high destiny it was designed to accom- 
plish. Tliis man will be President. His administration will 
be a shining epoch in our history, for he will leave behind him 
a name made illustrious by great achievements, and by deeds 
that will embalm him forever in the hearts and memory of 
his countrymen. 

Mr. Bryan, I esteem it a great honor, as it is most cer- 
tainly a pleasure, to be made the instrument of informing you, 
as I now do, that you were nominated for the office of Presi- 



Appendix. 899 

dent of the United States by the Democratic National Con- 
vention which assembled in Chicago in July last. I hand you 
this formal notice of your nomination, accompanied by a copy 
of the platform adopted by the Convention, and upon that 
platform I have the honor to request your acceptance of the 
nomination tendered. You are the candidate of the Demo- 
cratic party, but you are more than that — you are the candi- 
date of all the people, without regard to party, who believe 
in the purposes your election is intended to accomplish. This 
battle must be fought upon ground high above the. level of 
partisanship. I hope to see you unfurl the flag in the name 
of America and American manhood. In saying this I but 
repeat the expressed wish of the Convention which nominated 
you. Do this, and though you will not have millions of 
money at your command, you will have millions of sturdy 
Americans at your back. Lead on, and we will follow. Who 
w^ll not follow here is unworthy to lead in any cause. Lead 
on with unfaltering step, and may God's blessing attend you 
and His omnipotent hand crown you with success. 



400 Appendix. 



MR. BRYAN'S SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. 



New York City, August 12, 1896. 

Mr. Bryan : Mr. Ciiairman, Gentlemen of the Commit- 
tee and Fellow-Citizens : I shall, at a future day and in a 
formal letter, accept the nomination which is now tendered 
by the Notification Committee, and I shall at that time touch 
upon the issues presented by the platform. It is fitting, how- 
ever, that at this time, in the presence of those here assembled, 
I shall speak at some length in regard to the campaign upon 
which we are now entering. We do not underestimate the 
forces arrayed against us, nor are we unmindful of the impor- 
tance of the struggle in which we are engaged ; but relying 
for success upon the righteousness of our cause, we shall 
defend with all possible vigor the positions taken by our 
party. We are not surprised that some of our opponents, in 
the absence of better argument, resort to abusive epithets, but 
they may rest assured that no language, however violent, no 
invectives, however vehement, will lead us to depart a single 
hair's-breadth from the course marked out by the National 
Convention. The citizen, either public or private, who 
assails the character and questions the patriotism of the dele- 
gates assembled in the Chicago Convention, assails the char- 
acter and questions the patriotism of the millions who have 
arrayed themselves under the banner there raised. 

It has been charged by men standing high in business and 
political circles that our platform is a menace to private secur- 
ity and public safety ; and it has been asserted that those 
whom I have the honor, for the time being, to represent, not 
only meditate an attack upon the rights of property, but are 
the foes both of social order and national honor. 

Those who stand upon the Chicago Platform are prepared 
to make known and to defend every motive which influences 



Appendix. 401 

lliem, every purpose which aniii ates them, and every hope 
which inspires them. They understand the genius of our 
institutions; they are stanch supporters of the form of govern- 
ment under which we live, and tliey build their faith upon 
foundations laid by the fathers. Andrew Jackson has 
stated with admirable clearness and with an emphasis which 
cannot be surpassed, both the duty and the sphere of govern- 
ment. He said : "Distinctions in society will always exist 
under every just government. Equality of talents, of educa- 
tion or of wealth cannot be produced by human institutions. 
In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of 
superior industry, economy and virtue, every man is equally 
entitled to protection by law." We yield to none in our de- 
votion to the doctrine just enunciated. Our campaign has 
not for its object the reconstruction of society. We cannot 
insure to the vicious the fruits of a virtuous life ; we would 
not invade the home of the provident in order to supply the 
wants of the spendthrift ; we do not propose to transfer the 
rewards of industry to the lap of indolence. Property is and 
^vill remain the stimulus to endeavor and the compensation 
for toil. We believe, as asserted in the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, that all men are created equal ; but that does not 
mean that all men are or can be equal in possessions, in ability 
or in merit ; it simply means that all shall stand equal before 
the law, and that government officials shall not, in mak- 
ing, construing or enforcing the laAV, discriminate between 
citizens. 

I assert that property rights, as well as the rights of per- 
sons, are safe in the hands of the people. Abraham Lincoln, 
in his message sent to Congress in December, 1861, said : 
"No men living are more worthy to be trusted than those 
who toil up from poverty ; none less inclined to take or touch 
aught which they have not honestly earned." I repeat his 
language with unqualified approval, and join with him in the 
warning which he added, namely : " Let them beware of 
surrendering a political power which they already possess, 
and which power, if surrendered, will surely be used to close 
the doors of advancement against such as they, and to fix 
new disabilities and burdens upon them, till all of liberty 
shall be lost." Those who daily follow the injunction : "In 

26 



402 Appendix. 

the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread," are now, as they 
ever have been, the bulwark of law and order — the source of 
our nation's greatness in time of peace, and its surest defend- 
ers in time of war. 

But I have only read a part of Jackson's utterance — let 
me give you his conclusion : "• But when the laws undertake 
to add to those natural and just advantages artificial distinc- 
tions — to grant titles, gratuities and exclusive privileges — to 
make the rich richer and the potent more powerful — the hum- 
ble members of society — the farmers, mechanics and the 
laborers — who have neither the time nor the means of secur- 
ing like favors for themselves, hav'e a right to complain of 
the injustice of their government." Those who support the 
Chicago platform indorse all of the quotation from Jackson — 
the latter part as well as the former part. 

We are not surprised to find arra3'ed against us those who 
are the beneficiaries of Governn:>ent favoritism — they have 
read our platform. Nor are we surprised to learn that we 
must in this casnpaign face the hostility of those who find a 
pecuniary advantage in advocating the doctrine of non-inter- 
ference when great aggregations of wealth are trespassing 
upon the rights of individuals. We welcome such opposition 
— it is the highest indorsement wiiich could be bestowed upon 
us. We are content to have the co-operation of those who 
desire to have the Government administered without fear or 
favor. It is not the wish of the general public that trusts 
should spring into existence and override the weaker mem- 
bers of society; it is not the wish of ihe general public that 
these trusts should destroy competition and then collect such 
tax as they will from those who are at their mercy ; nor is it 
the fault of the general public that the instrumentaliiies of 
government have been so often prostituted to purposes of pri- 
vate gain. Those who stand upon the Chicago platform 
believe that the Government should not only avoid wrongdo- 
ing, but that it should also prevent wrongdoing, and tiiey 
believe that the law should be enforced alike against all ene- 
mies of the public weal. They do not excuse petit larceny, 
but they declare that grand larceny is equally a crime ; they 
do not defend the occupation of the highwayman who robs 
the unsuspecting traveler, but they include among the trans- 



Appendix. 403 

gressors those who, through the more pohte and less hazard- 
ous means of legislation, appropriate to their own use the 
proceeds of the toil of others. The commandment : "Thou 
shalt not steal," thundered from Sinai and reiterated in the 
legislation of all nations, is no respecter of persons. It must 
be applied to the great as well as to the small ; to the strong 
as w^ell as the weak ; to the corporate person created by law 
as well as to the person of flesh and blood created by the 
Almighty. Xo government is worthy of the name which is 
not able to protect from every arm uplifted for his injury the 
humblest citizen who lives beneath the flag. It follows as a 
necessary conclusion that vicious legislation must be remedied 
by the people who suffer from the effects of such legislation, 
and not by those who enjoy its benefits. 

\The Chicago platform has been condemned by some, 
because it dissents from an opinion rendered by the Supreme 
Court declaring the income tax- law unconstitutional. Our 
critics even go so far as to apply the name Anarchist to those 
who stand upon that plank of the platform. It must be 
remembered that w^e expressly recognize the binding force of 
that decision so long as it stands as a part of the law of the 
land. There is in the platform no suggestion of an attempt 
to dispute the authority of the Supreme Court. The party is 
simply pledged to use "all the constitutional power which 
remains after that decision, or which may come from its 
reversal by the court as it may hereafter be constituted.'" Is 
there any disloyalty in that pledge? For a hundred years the 
Supreme Court of the United States has sustained the prin- 
ciple which underlies the income tax. Some twenty years 
ago this same court sustained without a dissenting voice an 
income tax law almost identical with the one recently over- 
thrown ; has not a future court as much right to return to the 
judicial precedents of a century as the present court had to 
depart from them? When courts allow rehearings they admit 
that error is possible ; the late decision against the ir^come 
tax was rendered by a majority of one after a rehearing. V 

While the money question overshadows all others ques- 
tions in importance, I desire it distinctly understood that 1 
shall offer no apology for the income tax plank of the Chicago 
platform. The last income tax law sought to apportion the 



404' Appendix. 

burdens of government more equitably among those who 
enjoy the protection of the Government. At present the 
expenses of the Federal Government, collected through inter- 
nal revenue taxes and import duties, are especially burden- 
some upon tlie poorer classes of society. A law which col- 
lects from some citizens more than their share of the taxes 
and collects from other citizens less than their share, is sim- 
ply an indirect means of transferring one man's property to 
another man's pocket, and while the process may be quite 
satisfactory to the men who escape just taxation, it can never 
be satisfactory to those who are overburdened. The last 
income tax law, wnth its exemption provisions, when consid- 
ered in connection with other methods of taxation in force, 
was not unjust to the possessors of large incomes, because 
they were not compelled to pay a total Federal tax greater 
than their share. The income tax is not new^ nor is it based 
upon hostility to the rich. The system is employed in several 
of the most important nations of Europe, and every income 
tax law now^ upon the statute books in any land, so far as I 
have been able to ascertain, contains an exemption clause. 
While the collection of an income tax in other countries does 
not make it necessary for this nation to adopt the system, yet 
it ought to moderate the language of those who denounce the 
income tax as an assault upon the well-to-do. 

Not only shall I refuse to apologize for the advocacy of an 
income tax law by the National Convention, but I shall also 
refuse to apologize for the exercise by it of the right to dissent 
from a decision of the Supreme Court. In a governmient like 
ours every public official is a public servant, whether he hold 
office by election or by appointment, whether he serves for a 
term of years or during good behavior, and the people have a 
right to criticise his official acts. " Confidence is everywhere 
the parent of despotism ; free government exists in jealousy 
and not in confidence" — these are the words of Thomas Jef- 
ferson, and I submit that they present a truer conception of 
popular government than that entertained by those who would 
prohibit an unfavorable comment upon a court decision 
Truth w^ill vindicate itself ; only error fears free speech. No 
public official who conscientiously discharges his duty as he 



Appendix. 405 

sees it will desire to deny to those whom he serves the right to 
discuss his official conduct. 

No\v let me ask you to consider the paramount question of 
this campaign — the money question. It is scarcely necessary 
to defend the principle of bimetallism. Xo national party 
during the entire history of the United States has ever de- 
clared against it, and no party in this campaign has had the 
temerity to oppose it. Three parties — the Democratic, Popu- 
list and Silver parties — have not only declared for bimetallism, 
but have outlined the spe ific legislation necessary to restore 
silver to its ancient position by the side of gold. The Repub- 
lican platform expressly declares that bimetallism is desirable 
when it pledges the Republican part}^ to aid in securing it as 
soon as the assistance of certain foreign nations can be ob- 
tained. Those who represented the minority sentiment in the 
Chicago Convention opposed the free coinage of silver bv the 
United States by independent action on the ground that, in 
their judgment, it "^vould retard or entirely prevent the es- 
tablishment of international bimetallism, to which the efforts 
of the Government should be steadily directed ." When they 
asserted that the efforts of the Government should be steadily 
directed toward the establishment of international bimetallism, 
they condemned monometallism. The gold standard has been 
weighed in the balance and found wanting. Take from it the 
powerful support of the money-o^vning and the money-chang- 
ing classes and it cannot stand for one day in any nation in the 
world. It was fastened upon the United vStates -without dis- 
cussion before the people, and its friends have never yet been 
willing to risk a verdict before the voters upon that issue. 

There can be no sympatliy or co-operation between the ad- 
vocates of a universal gold standard and the advocates of bi- 
metallism. Between bimetallisin — whether independent or 
international — and the gold standard there is an impassable 
gulf. Is this quadrennial agitation in favor of international 
bimetallism conducted in good faith, or do our opponents really 
desire to maintain the gold standard permanently? Are they 
\villing to confess the superiority of a double standard when 
joined in by the leading nations of the world, or do they still 
insist that gold is the only metal suitable for standard money 
among civilized nations? If they are in fact desirous of se- 



406 Appendix. 

curing bimetallism, we may expect them to point out the evils 
of a gold standard and defend bimetallism as a system. 

If, on the other hand, they are bending their energies to- 
ward the permanent establishment of a gold standard under 
cover of a declaration in favor of international bimetallism, I 
am justified in suggesting that honest money cannot be ex- 
pected at the hands of those who deal dishonestly with the 
American people. 

What is the test of honesty in money? It must certainly 
be found in the purchasing power of the dollar. An abso- 
lutely honest dollar would not vary in its general purchasing 
power ; it would be absolutely stable when measured by aver- 
age prices. A dollar which increases in purchasing power is 
just as dishonest as a dollar which decreases in purchasing 
power. Professor Laughlin, now of the University of Chi- 
cago, and one of the highest gold-standard authorities, in his 
w^ork on bimetallism, not only admits that gold does not re- 
main absolutely stable in value, but expressly asserts "that 
there is no such thing as a standard of value for the future 
payments, either in gold or silver, which remains absolutely 
invariable." He even suggests that a multiple standard, 
wherein the unit is " based upon the selling prices of a num- 
ber of articles of general consumption," would be a more just 
standard than either gold or silver, or both, because " a long- 
time contract would thereby be paid at its maturity by the 
same purchasing power as was given in the beginning." 

It cannot be successfully claimed that monometallism or bi- 
•metallism, or any other system, gives an absolutely just stand- 
ard of value. Under both monometallism and bimetallism 
the Government fixes the weight and fineness of the dollar, 
invests it with legal tender qualities and then opens the mints 
to its restricted coinage, leaving the purchasing power of the 
dollar to be determined by the number of dollars. Bimetallism 
is better than monometallism, not because it gives us a perfect 
dollar — that is, a dollar absolutely unvarying in its general 
purchasing power — but because it makes a nearer approach to 
stabilit}^ to honesty, to justice, than a gold standard possibly 
can. Prior to 1878, when there were enough open mints to 
permit all the gold and silver available for coinage to find en- 
trance into the world's volume of standard money, the United 



Appendix. 407 

States might have maintiiined a gold standard with less injury 
to the people of this country ; but now, when each step to- 
ward a universal gold standard enhances the purchasing power 
of gold, depresses prices and transfers to the pockets of the 
creditor class an unearned increment, the influence of this 
great nation must not be thrown upon the side of gold unless 
we are prepared to accept the natural and legitimate conse- 
quences of such an act. Any legislation which lessens the 
world's stock of standard money increases the exchangeable 
value of the dollar; therefore, the crusader against silver must 
inevitably raise the purchasing power of money and lower the 
money value of all other forms of property. 

Our opponents sometimes admit that it was a mistake to 
demonetize silver, but insist that we should submit to present 
conditions rather that return to the bimetallic system. They 
err in supposing that we have reached the end of the evil re- 
sults of gold standard ; we have not reached the end. The 
injury is a continuing one, and no person can say how long 
the w^orld is to suffer from the attempt to make gold the only 
standard money. The same influences which are now oper- 
ating to destroy silver in the United States will, if successful 
here, be turned against other silver-using countries, and each 
new convert to the gold standard will add to the general dis- 
tress. So long as the scramble for gold continues, prices must 
fall, and a general fall in prices is but another definition of 
hard times. 

Our opponents, w4iile claiming entire disinterestedness for 
themselves, have appealed to the selfishness of nearly every 
class of society. Recognizing the disposition of the individual 
voter to consider the effect of any proposed legislation upon 
himself, we present to the American people the financial pol- 
icy outlined in the Chicago platform, believing that it will re- 
sult in the greatest good to the greatest number. 

The farmers are opposed to the gold standard because they 
have felt its effects. Since they sell at wholesale and buy at 
retail they have lost more than they have gained by falling 
prices, and, besides this, they have found that certain fixed 
charges have not fallen at all. Taxes have not been percep- 
tibly decreased, although it requires more of farm products 
now than formerly to secure the money with w^hich to pay 



408 Appendix. 

taxes. Debts have not fallen. The farmer who owed $1,000 
is still compelled to pay $1,000, although it may be twice as 
difficult as formerly to obtain the dollars with which to pay 
the debt. Railroad rates have not been reduced to keep pace 
Avith falling prices, and besides these items there are many 
more. The farmer has thus found it more and more difficult 
to live. Has he not a just complaint against the gold standard.^ 

The wage-earners have been injured by a gold standard, 
and have expressed themselves upon the subject with great 
emphasis. In February, 1895, a petition asking for the im- 
mediate restoration of the free and unlimited coinage of gold 
and silver at 16 to 1 was signed by the representatives of all, 
or nearly all, the leading labor organizations and presented to 
Congress. Wage-earners know that while a gold standard 
raises the purchasing power of the dollar it also makes it more 
difficult to obtain possession of the dollar; they kno-w that 
employment is less permanent, loss of ^vork more probable, 
and re-employment less certahi. A gold standard encourages 
the hoarding of money because money is rising; it also dis- 
courages enterprise and paralyzes industry. On the other hand, 
the restoration of bimetallism will discourage hoarding, be- 
cause, when prices are steady or rising, money cannot afford 
to lie idle in the bank vaults. The farmers and wage-earners 
together constitute a considerable majority of the people of 
the country. Why should their interests be ignored in con- 
sidering financial legislation ? A monetary system which is 
peculiarly advantageous to a few syndicates has far less to 
commend it than a system which would give hope and encour- 
agement to those \vho create the nation's wealth. 

Our opponents have made a special appeal to those who 
hold fire and life insurance policies, but these policy-holders 
know that, since the total pre.niurns received exceed the total 
losses paid, a rising standard must be of more benefit to the 
companies than to the policy-holders. 

Much solicitude has been expressed by our opponents for 
the depositors in savings banks. They constantly parade be- 
fore these depositors the advantages of a gold standard, but 
these appeals will be in vain, because savings bank depositors 
know that under a gold standard there is increasing danger 
that they will lose their deposits because of the inability of the 



Appexdix. 401) 

banks to collect their assets; and they still further know tiiat, 
if the gold standard is to continue infinitely, they may be com- 
pelled to withdraw their deposits in order to pay living 
expenses. 

It is only necessary to note the increasing number of fail- 
ures in order to know that a gold standard is ruinous to mer- 
chants and manufacturers. These business men do not make 
their profits from the people from whom they borrow money, 
but from the people to whom they sell their goods. If the 
people cannot buy, retailers cannot sell, and, if retailers can- 
not sell, wholesale merchants and manufacturers must go into 
bankruptcy. 

Those who hold, as a permanent investment, the stock of 
railroads and of other enterprises — I do not include those who 
speculate in stocks or use stock-holdings as a means of obtain- 
ing inside advantage in construction contracts — arc injured by 
a gold standard. The rising dollar destroys the earning power 
of these enterprises without reducing their liabilities, and, as 
dividends cannot be paid until salaries and fixed ch.arges have 
been satisfied, the stockholders must bear the burden of hard 
times. 

Salaries in business occupations depend upon business 
conditions, and the gold standard both lessens the amount and 
threatens the permanency of such salaries. 

Ofiicial salaries, except the salaries of those who hold ofiice 
for life, must, in the long run, be adjusted to the conditions of 
those who pay the taxes, and if the present financial policy 
continues ^ve must expect the contest between the taxpayer 
and the taxeater to increase in bitterness. 

The professional classes — in the main — derive their support 
from the producing classes, and can only enjoy prosperity 
when there is prosperity among those who create wealth. 

I have not attempted to describe the efiect of the gold 
standard upon all classes — in fact, I have only had time to 
mention a few — but each person will be able to apply the 
principles stated to his own occupation. 

It must also be remembered that it is the desire of people 
generally to convert their earnings into real or personal prop- 
erty. This being true, in considering any temporary advant- 
age which may come from a system under which the dollar 



410 Appendix. 

rises in its purchasing power, it must not be forgotten that 
the dollar cannot buy more than formerly, unless property 
sells for less than formerly. Hence, it will be seen that a 
large portion of those who may find some pecuniary advantage 
in a gold standard will discover that their losses exceed their 
gains. 

It is sometimes asserted by our opponents that a bank 
belongs to the debtor class, but this is not true of any solvent 
bank. Every statement published by a solvent bank shows 
that the assets exceed the liabilities. That is to say. while the 
bank owes a large amount of money to its depositors, it not 
only has enough on hand in money and notes to pay its depos- 
itors, but in addition thereto, has enought to cover its capital 
and surplus. When the dollar is rising in value slowly a bank 
may, by making short-time loans and taking good security, 
avoid loss ; but when prices are falling rapidly the bank is apt 
to lose more because of bad debts than it can gain by the 
increase in the purchasing power of its capital and surplus. 

Some bankers, however, combine the business of a bond 
broker with the ordinary banking business, and these may 
make enough in the negotiation of loans to offset the losses 
arising in legitimate banking business. As long as human 
nature remains as it is there will ahvays be danger that, unless 
restrained by public opinion or legal enactment, those who 
see a pecuniary benefit for themselves in a certain condition 
may yield to the temptation to bring about that condition. 
Jefferson has stated that one of the main duties of government 
is to prevent men from injuring one another, and never was 
that duty more important than it is to-day. It is not strange 
that those who have inade a profit by furnishing gold to the 
Government in the hour of its extremity, favor a financial 
policy which kept the Government dependent upon them. I 
believe, howevei-, that I speak the sentiment of the vast 
majority of the people of the United States when I say that 
a wise financial policy administered in behalf of all the people 
would make our Government independent of any combination 
of financiers, foreign or domestic. 

Let me say a word, now, in regard to certain persons who 
are pecuniarily benefited by a gold standard, and who favor it, 
not from a desire to tresspass upon the rights of others, but 



Appendix, 411 

because the circumstances which surround them blind them 
to the effect of the gold standard upon others. I shall ask you 
to consider the language of two gentlemen whose long public 
service and high standing in the party to which they belong 
will protect them from adverse criticism by our opponents. 
In 1869 Senator Sherman said : •' The contraction of the cur- 
rency is a far more distressing operation than Senators sup- 
pose. Our own and other nations have gone through that 
operation before. It is not possible to take that voyage with- 
out the sorest distress. To every person, except a capitalist 
out of debt, or a salaried officer or annuitant, it is a. period of 
loss, danger, lassitude of trade, fall of wages, suspension of 
enterprise, bankruptcy and disaster. It means ruin to all deal- 
ers whose debts are twice their business capital, though one- 
third less than their actual property. It means the fall of all 
agricultural production without any great reduction of taxes. 
What prudent man would dare to build a house, a railroad, a 
factory or a barn with this certain fact before hioi?" As I 
have said before, the salaried officer referred to must be the 
man ^vhose salarv is fixed for life, and not the man whose 
salary depends upon business conditions. When Mr. Shermax 
describes contraction of the currency as disastrous to all the 
people except the capitalist out of debt and those who stand 
in a position similar to his, he is stating a truth which must 
be apparent to every person who will give the matter careful 
consideration. Mr. Sherman was at that time speaking of the 
contraction of the volume of paper currency, but the principle 
which he set forth applies, if there is a contraction of the 
volume of the standard money of the world. 

Mr. Blaixe discussed the same principle in connection with 
the demonetization of silver. Speaking in the House of Rep- 
resentatives on the 7th of February, 1878, he said : '• I believe 
the struggle now going on in this country and other countries 
for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce wide- 
spread disaster in and throughout the commercial world. The 
destruction of silver as money, and the establishing of gold as 
the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms 
of property, except those investments w^hich yield a fixed 
return in money. These would be enormously enhanced in 
value, and would gain a disproportionate and unfair advant- 



412 x\pPENDIX. 

age over every other species of property." Is it strange that 
the "holders of investments which yield a fixed return in 
money" can regard the destruction of silver with complacency ? 
May we not expect the holders of other forms of property to 
protest against giving to money a "disproportionate and unfair 
advantage over every other species of property?" If the 
relatively few whose wealth consists largely in fixed invest- 
ments have a right to use the ballot to enhance the value of 
their investments, have not the rest of the people the right to 
use the ballot to protect themselves from the disastrous conse- 
quences of a rising standard? 

The people who must purchase money with the products 
of toil stand in a position entirely dift'erent from the position 
of those who own money or receive a fixed income. The well- 
being of the nation — aye, of civilization itself — depends upon 
the prosperity of the masses. What shall it profit us to have 
a dollar which grows more valuable every day if such a dollar 
lowers the standard of civilization and brings distress to the 
people? What shall it profit us if, in trying to raise our credit 
by increasing the purchasing power of our dollar, we destroy 
our ability to pay the debts already contracted by lowering the 
purchasing power of the products with which those debts must 
be paid? If it is asserted, as it constantly is asserted, that the 
gold standard \vill enable us to borrow more money from 
abroad, I reply that the restoration of bimetallism will restore 
the parity between money and property, and thus permit an 
era of prosperity which will enable the American people to 
become loaners of money instead of perpetual borrowers. 
Even if we desire to borrow, how long can we continue bor- 
rowing under a system which, by low^ering the value of prop- 
erty, w^eakens the foundation upon \vhich credit rests? 

Even the holders of fixed investments, though they gain an 
advantage from the appreciation of the dollar, certainly see 
the injustice of the legislation which gives them this advant- 
age over those whose incomes depend upon the value of 
property and products. If the holders of fixed investments 
will not listen to arguments based upon justice and equity, I 
appeal to them to consider the interests of posterity. We do 
not live for ourselves alone; our labor, our self-denial and our 
anxious care — all these are for those who are to come after us, 



Appendix. 413 

as much as for ourselves, but we cannot protect our children 
beyond the period of our lives. Let those who are now reap- 
ing advantage from a vicious financial system remember that, 
in the years to come, their own children and their children's 
children may, through the operation of this same system, be 
made to pay tribute to the descendants of those who are 
wronged to-day. 

As against the maintenance of a gold standard, either 
permanently or until other nations can be united for its over- 
throw, the Chicago platform presents a clear and emphatic 
demand for the immediate restoration of the free and unlim- 
ited coinage of silver and gold at the present legal ratio of 16 
to 1, without w^aiting for the aid or consent of any other na- 
tion. We are not asking that a ne\v experiment be tried ; we 
are insisting upon a return to a financial policy approved by 
the experience of history and supported by all the prominent 
statesmen of our nation from the days of the first President 
down to 1873. When we ask that our mints be opened to the 
free and unlimited coinage of silver into full legal tender 
money, \ve are simply asking that the same mint privileges 
be accorded to silver that are now accorded to gold. When 
we ask that this coinage be at the ratio of 16 to 1 we simply 
ask that our gold coins and standard silver dollar — which, be 
it remembered, contains the same amount of pure silver as the 
first silver dollar coined at our mints — retain their present 
weight and fineness. 

The theoretical advantage of the bimetallic system is best 
stated by a European w^riter on political economy, who sug- 
gests the following illustration : A river fed from two sources 
is more uniform in volume than a river fed from one source — 
the reason being that when one of the feeders is swollen the 
other may be low; whereas, a river which has but one feeder 
must rise or fall with that feeder. So in the case of bimetal- 
lism, the volume of metallic money receives contributions 
from both the gold mines and the silver mines, and therefore, 
varies less; and the dollar, resting upon two metals, is less 
changeable in its purchasing powder than the dollar which 
rests upon one metal only. 

If there are two kinds of money, the option must rest 
either with the debtor or with the creditor. Assuming that 



414 Appendix. 

their rights are equal, we must look at the interests of society 
in general in order to determine to which side the option 
should be given. Under the bimetallic system, gold and sil- 
ver are linked together by la^v at a fixed ratio, and any person 
or persons o\vning any quantity of either metal can have the 
same converted into full legal-tender money. If the creditor 
has the right to choose the metal in which payment should be 
made, it is reasonable to suppose that he will require the debt- 
or to pay in the dearer metal if there is any preceptible differ- 
ence between the bullion values of the metals. This new de- 
mand created for the dearer metal will make that metal dearer 
still, while the decreased demand for the cheaper metal will 
make that metal cheaper still. If, on the other hand, the 
debtor exercises the option, it is reasonable to suppose that he 
will pay in the cheaper metal if one metal is perceptibly 
cheaper than the other ; but the demand thus created for the 
cheaper metal will raise its price, while the lessened demand 
for the dearer metal will lower its price. In other words, 
when the creditor has the option, the metals are drawn apart ; 
whereas, when the debtor has the option, the metals are held 
together approximately at the ratio fixed by law ; provided the 
demand created is sufficient to absorb all of both metals pre- 
sented at the mint. 

Society is, therefore, interested in having the option exer- 
cised by the debtor. Indeed, there can be no such thing as 
real bimetallism unless the option is exercised by the debtor. 
The exercise of the option by the debtor compels the creditor 
classes, whether domestic or foreign, to exert themselves to 
maintain the parity between gold and silver at the legal ratio, 
whereas they might find a profit in driving one of the metals 
to a premium if they could then demand the dearer metal. 
The right of the debtor to choose the coin iri which payment 
shall be made extends to obligations due from the Government 
as well as contracts between individuals. A Government ob- 
ligation is simply a debt due from aU of the people to one of 
the people, nnd it is impossible to justify a policy which makes 
the interests of the one person who holds the obligation supe- 
rior to the rights of the many who must be taxed to pay it. 
When, prior to 187B, silver was at a premium, it was never 
contended that national honor required the payment of Gov- 



x\pPEXDlX. 415 

ernment obligations in silver, and the Matthews resolution, 
adopted by Congress in 1878, expressly asserted the right of 
the United States to redeem coin obligations in standard silver 
dollars as well as in gold coin. 

Upon this subject the Chicago platforn reads : " We are 
opposed to the policy and practice of surrendering to the hold- 
ers of the obligations of the United States the option reserved 
by law to the Government of redeeming such obligations in 
either silver coin or gold coin." 

It is constantly assumed by some that the United vStates 
notes, commonly called greenbacks, and the Treasury notes, 
issued under the act of 1890, are responsible for the recent 
drain upon the gold reserve, but this assumption is entirely 
^vithout foundation. Secretary Carlisle appeared before the 
House .Committee on Appropriations on January 21, 1895, 
and I quote from the printed report of his testimony before the 
committee : 

Mr. Sibley : I would like to ask you (perhaps not entire- 
ly connected with the matter under discussion) what objection 
could there be to having the option of redeeining either in sil- 
ver or gold lie with the Treasury instead of the note-holder? 

Secretary Carlisle : If that policy had been adopted at 
the beginning of the resumption — and I am not saying this for 
the purpose of criticising the action of any of my predecessors, 
or anybody else — but if the policy of reserving to the Govern- 
ment, at the beginning of resumption, the option of redeeming 
in gold or silver all its paper presented, I believe it would 
have worked beneficially, and there ^vould have been no 
trouble growing out of it, but the Secretaries of the Treasury 
from the beginning of resumption have pursued a policy of 
redeeming in gold or silver at the option of the holder of the 
paper, and if any Secretary had afterward attempted to 
change that policy and force silver upon a man who wanted 
gold, or gold upon a man ^vho wanted silver, and especially if 
he had made that attempt at such a critical period as we have 
had in the last two years, my judgment is it would have been 
very disastrous. 

I do not agree wath the Secretary that it was wise to fol- 
low a bad precedent, but from his answer it will be seen that 
the fault does not lie with the greenbacks and Treasury notes, 



410 Appendix. 

but ratlier with the executive officers who have seen lit to 
surrender a right which should have been exercised for the 
protection of the interests of the people. This executive 
action has already been made the excuse for the issue of more 
than .$250,000,000 in bonds, and it is impossible to estimate 
the amount of bonds which may hereafter be issued if this 
policy is continued. We are told that any attempt upon the 
part of the Government at this time to redeem its obligations 
in silver would put a premium upon gold, but why should it? 
The Bank of France exercises the right to redeem all bank 
paper in either gold or silver, and yet France maintains the 
parity between gold and silver at the ratio of 15^ to 1, and 
retains in circulation more silver per capita than we do in the 
United States. 

It may be further answered that our opponents have sug- 
gested no feasible plan for avoiding the dangers which they 
fear. The retirement of the greenbacks and Treasury notes 
would not protect the Treasury, because the same policy which 
now leads the Secretary of the Treasury to redeem all Gov- 
ernment paper in gold, wdien gold is demanded, will require 
the redemption of all silver dollars and silver certificates in 
gold, if the greenbacks and Treasury notes are withdrawn from 
circulation. More than this, if the Government should retire 
its paper and throw upon the banks the necessity of furnishing 
coin redemption, the banks would exercise the right to furnish 
either gold or silver. In other words, they would exercise the 
option, just as the Government ought to exercise it now. The 
Government must either exercise the right to redeem its obli- 
gations in silver ^vhen silver is more convenient, or it must 
retire all the silver and silver certificates from circulation and 
leave nothing but gold as legal-tender money. Are our oppo- 
nents walling to outline a financial system which will carry out 
their policy to its legitimate conclusion, or w^ill they continue 
to cloak their designs in ambiguous phrases.? 

There is an actual necessity for bimetallism as well as a 
theoretical defence of it. During the last twenty-three years 
legislation has been creating an additional demand for gold, 
and this la\v-created demand has resulted in increasing the 
purchasing power of each ounce of gold. The restoration of 
bimetallism in the United States will take away from gold 



Appendix. 417 

just so much of its purchasing power as ^vas added to it by the 
demonetization of silver by the United States. The silver 
dollar is now held up to the gold dollar by legal-tender laws 
and not by redemption in gold, because the standard silver 
dollars are not now redeemable in gold either in law or by 
administrative policy. 

We contend that free and unlimited coinage by the United 
States alone will raise the bullion value of silver to its coinage 
value, and thus make silver bullion worth $1.29 per ounce in 
gold throughout the world. This proposition is in keeping 
^vith natural laws, not in defiance of them. The best known 
law of commerce is the law of supply and demand. We 
recognize this law^ and build our argument upon it. We apply 
this law to money when we say that a reduction in the volume 
of money will raise the purchasing power of the dollar ; we 
also apply the law of supply and demand to silver when we 
say that a new demand for silver created by law will raise the 
price of silver bullion. Gold and silver are different from other 
commodities, in that they are limited in quantity. Corn, 
wheat, manufactured products, etc., can be produced almost 
without limit, provided they can be sold at a price sufficient to 
stimulate production, but gold and silver are called precious 
metals, because they are found, not produced. These metals 
have been the objects of anxious search as far back as history 
runs, yet, according to Mr. Harvey's calculation, all the gold 
coin of the world can be melted into a 22-foot cube, and all 
the silver coin in the world into a 66-foot cube. Because gold 
and silver are limited, both in the quantity now in hand, and 
in annual production, it follows that legislation can fix the 
ratio between them. 

Any purchaser who stands ready to take the entire supply 

of any given article at a certain price can prevent that article 

from falling below that price. So the Government can fix a 

price for gold and silver by creating a demand greater than the 

supply. International bimetallists believe that several nations, 

by entering into an agreement to coin at a fixed ratio all the 

gold and silver presented, can maintain the bullion value of 

the metals at the mint ratio. When a mint price is thus 

established, it regulates the bullion price, because any person 

desiring coin may have the bullion converted into coin at that 
27 



418 Appendix. 

price, and any person desiring bullion can secure it by melting" 
the coin. The only question upon which international bimet- 
allists and independent bimetallists differ is : Can the United 
States by the free and unlimited coinage of silver at the present 
legal ratio create a demand for silver which, taken in connec- 
tion with the demand already in existence, will be sufficient to 
utilize all the silver that will be presented at the mints? They 
agree in their defence of the bimetallic principle, and they 
agree in unalterable opposition to the gold standard. Inter- 
national bimetallists cannot complain that free coinage gives a 
benefit to the mine owner, because international bimetallism 
gives to the owner of silver all the advantages offered by inde- 
pendent bimetallism at the same ratio. International bimet- 
allists cannot accuse the advocates of free silver of being 
"bullion owners who desire to raise the value of their bullion ; " 
or "debtors who desire to pay their debts in cheap dollars; " 
or "demagogues who desire to curry favor with the people." 
They must rest their opposition upon one ground only, ^namely : 
That the supply of silver available for coinage is too large to 
be utilized by the United States. 

In discussing this question we must consider the capacity 
of our people to use silver and the quantity of silver which can 
come to our mints It must be remembered that v^e live in a 
country only partially developed, and that our people far sur- 
pass any equal number of people in the world in their power 
to consume and produce. Our extensive railroad development 
and enormous internal commerce must also be taken into con- 
sideration. Now, how much silver can come here? Not the 
coined silver of the world, because almost all of it is more 
valuable at this time in other lands than it will be at our mints- 
under free coinage. If our mints are opened to free and 
unlimited coinage at the present ratio, merchandise silver can- 
not come here, because the labor applied to it has made it 
worth more in the form of merchandise than it will be wortb 
at our mints. We cannot even expect all of the annual 
product of silver, because India, China, Japan, Mexico and all 
the other silver-using countries must satisfy their annual needs 
from the annual product ; the arts will require a large amount, 
and the gold standard countries will need a considerable 
quantity for subsidiary coinage. We will be required to coin. 



Appendix. 419 

only that which is not needed elsewhere ; but, if we stand 
ready to take and utilize all of it, 'other nations will be com- 
pelled to buy at the price we fix. Many fear that the open- 
ing of the mints will be followed by an enormous increase in 
the annual production of silver. This is conjecture. Silver 
has been used as money for thousands of years, and during all 
that time the world has never suffered from an over-produc- 
tion. If, for any reason, the supply of gold or silver in the 
future ever exceeds the requirements of the arts and the needs 
of commerce, ^ve confidently hope that the intelligence of the 
people will be sufficient to devise and enact any legislation 
necessary for the protection of the public. It is folly to refuse 
to the people the money which they now need for fear they 
may hereafter have more than they need. I am firmly con- 
vinced that by opening our mints to free and unlimited coin- 
age at the present ratio we can create a demand for silver 
which will keep the price of silver bullion at $1.29 per ounce 
measured by gold. 

Some of our opponents attribute the fall in the value of 
silver, when measured by gold, to the fact that during the last 
quarter of a century the world's supply of silver has increased 
more rapidly than the world's supply of gold. This argument 
is entirely ans\vered by the fact that, during the last five 
years, the annual production of gold has increased more rap- 
idly than the annual production of silver. Since the gold 
price of silver has fallen more during these five years than it 
ever fell in any previous five years in the history of the world,, 
it is evident that the fall is not due to increased production.. 
Prices can be lowered as eflfectually by decreasing the de- 
mand for an article as by increasing the supply of it, and it 
seems certain that the fall in the gold price of silver is due to 
hostile legislation and not to natural laws. In other words, 
when gold leaves the country those who formerly owned it 
will be benefited. There is no process by which we can be 
compelled to part with our gold against our will, nor is there 
any process by which silver can be forced upon us without 
our consent. Exchanges are matters ot agreement and if 
silver comes to this country under free coinage it ^vill be at 
the invitation of some one in this country who will give 
something in exchange for it. 



420 Appendix. 

In answer to the charge that gold will go abroad under 
free coinage, it must be remembered that no gold can leave 
this country until the owner of the gold receives something in 
return for it which he would rather have. 

Our opponents cannot ignore the fact that gold is now 
going abroad in spite of all legislation intended to prevent it, 
and no silver is being coined to take its place. Not only is 
gold going abroad now, but it must continue logo abroad as 
long as the present financial policy is adhered to, unless we 
continue to borrow from across the ocean, and even then we 
simply postpone the evil, because the amount borrowed, 
together with the interest upon it, must be repaid in appre- 
ciating dollars. The American people now owe a large sum 
to European creditors, and falling prices have left a larger and 
larger margin between our net national income and our annual 
interest charge. There is only one w^ay to stop the increasing 
flow of gold from our shores, and that is to stop falling prices. 
The restoration of bimetallism will not only stop falling 
prices, but will — to some extent — restore prices by reducing 
the world's demand for gold. If it is argued that a rise in 
prices lessens the value of the dollars which we pay to our 
creditors, I reply that, in the balancing of equities the Amer- 
ican people have as much right to favor a financial system 
which will maintain or restore prices as foreign creditors have 
to insist upon a financial system that will reduce prices. But 
the interests of society are far superior to the interests of 
either creditors or debtors, and the interests of society demand 
a financial system which \vill add to the volume of the stand- 
ard money of the world, and thus restore stability to prices. 

Perhaps the most persistent misrepresentation that we 
have to meet is the charge that we are advocating the pay- 
ment of debts in fifty-three cent dollars. At the present time 
and under the present laws a silver dollar, when melted, loses 
nearly half its value, but that w^ill not be true when we again 
establish a mint price for silver and leave no surplus silver 
upon the market to drag down the price of bullion. Under 
bimetallism silver bullion will be worth as much as silver coin, 
just as ^old bullion is now worth as much as gold coin, and we 
believe that a silver dollar will be worth as much as a gold 
^dollar. 



Appendix. 421 

The charge of repudiation comes with poor grace from 
those who are seeking to add to the weight of existing debts 
by legislation w^iich makes money dearer, and who conceal 
their designs against the general welfare under the euphonious 
pretence that they are upholding public credit and national 
honor. 

Those who deny the ability of the United States to main- 
the parity between gold and silver at the present legal ratio 
without foreign aid point to Mexico and assert that the open- 
ing of our mints w^ill reduce us to a silver basis and raise gold 
to a premium. It is no reflection upon our sister Republic to 
remind our people that the United States is much greater than 
JNIexico in area, in population and in commercial strength. It 
is absurd to assert that the United States is not able to do 
anything which Mexico has failed to accomplish. The one 
thin J necessary in order to maintain the parity is to furnish a 
demand great enough to utilize all the silver which will come 
to our mints. That Mexico has failed to do this is not proof 
that the United States would also fail. 

It is also argued that, since a number of the nations have 
demonetized silver, nothing can be done until all of those 
nations restore bimetallism. This is also illogical. It is 
immaterial how many or how few nations have open mints, 
provided there are sufficient open mints to furnish a monetary 
demand for all the gold and silver available for coinage. 

In reply to the argument that improved machinery has 
lessened the cost of producing, silver, it is sufficient to say that 
the same is true of the production of gold, and yet, notwith- 
standing that, gold has risen in value. As a matter of fact, 
the cost of production does not determine the value of the 
precious metals, except as it may affect the supply. If, for 
instance, the cost of producing gold should be reduced 90 per 
cent without any increase in the output, the purchasing power 
of an ounce of gold w^ould not fall. So long as there is a 
monetary demand sufficient to take at a fixed mint price all of 
the gold and silver produced, the cost of production need not 
be considered. 

It is often objected that the prices of gold and silver cannot 
be fixed in relation to each other, because of the variation in 
the relative production of the metals. This argument also 



422 Appendix. 

overlooks the fact that, if the demand for both metals at a 
fixed price is greater than the supply of both, relative pro- 
duction becomes immaterial. In the early part of the present 
century the annual production of silver w^as w^orth, at the 
coinage ratio, about three times as much as the annual pro- 
duction of gold ; whereas soon after 1849, the annual produc- 
tion of gold became worth about three times as much, at the 
coinage ratio, as the annual production of silver; and yet, 
owing to the maintenance of the bimetallic standard, these 
enormous changes in relative production had but a slight effect 
upon the relative values of the metals. 

If it is asserted by our opponents that the free coinage of 
silver is intended only for the benefit of the mine owners, it 
must be remembered that free coinage cannot restore to the 
mine owners any more than demonetization took away ; and 
it must also be remembered that the loss which the demone- 
tization of silver has brought to the mine owners is insignifi- 
cant compared to the loss which this policy has brought to the 
rest of the people. The restoration of silver will bring to the 
people generally many times as much advantage as the mine 
owners can obtain from it. While it is not the purpose of 
free coinage to specially aid any particular class, yet those 
who believe that the restoration of silver is needed by the 
whole people should not be deterred because an incident bene- 
fit will come to the mine owners. The erection of forts, the 
deepening of harbors, the improvement of rivers, the erection 
of public buildings — all these confer incidental benefits upon 
individuals and communities, and yet these incidental benefits 
do not deter us from making appropriations for these purposes 
whenever such appropriations are necessary for the public 
good. 

The argument that a silver dollar is heavier than a gold 
dollar, and that, therefore, silver is less convenient to carry in 
large quantities, is completely answered by the silver certifi- 
cate, which is as easily carried as the gold certificate or any 
other kind of paper money. 

There are some who, while admitting the benefits of bimet- 
allism, object to coinage at the present ratio. If any are 
deceived by this objection, they ought to remember that there 
are no bimetallists who are earnestly endeavoring to secure it 



Appendix. 423 

at any other ratio than 16 to 1. We are opposed to any 
change in the ratio for two reasons — first, because a change 
would produce great injustice, and, second, because a change 
in the ratio is not necessary. A change would produce 
injustice because, if effected in the manner usually suggested, 
it would result in an enormous contraction in the volume of 
standard money. 

If, for instance, it was decided by international agreement 
to raise the ratio throughout the world to 82 to 1, the change 
might be effected in any of three ways : 

The silver dollar could be doubled in size,- so that 
the new silver dollar would weigh thirtv-two times as much 
as the present gold dollar; or the present gold dollar could be 
reduced one-half in weight, so that the present silver dollar 
would weigh thirty-two times as much as the new gold dollar; 
or the change could be made by increasing the size of the 
silver dollar and decreasing the size of the gold dollar until the 
new silver dollar would weigh thirty-two times as much as 
the new gold dollar. Those who have advised a change 
in the ratio have usually suggested that the silver dollar 
be doubled. If this change w^ere made it \vould necessitate 
the recoinage of four billions of silver into t\vo billions of dol- 
lars. There would be an immediate loss of two billions of 
dollars either to individuals or to the Government, but this 
would be the least of the injury. A shrinkage of one-half in 
the silver money of the world \vould mean a shrinkage of one- 
fourth in the total volume of metallic money. This contrac- 
tion, by increasing the value of the dollar, \vould virtually 
increase the debts of the world billions of dollars, and decrease 
still more the value of the property of the world as measured 
by dollars. Besides this immediate result, such a change in 
the ratio would permanently decrease the annual addition to 
the world's supply of money, because the annual silver product, 
when coined into dollars twice as large, would make only 
half as many dollars. 

The people of the United States would be injured by a 
change in the ratio, not because they produce silver, but 
because they own property and OAve debts, and they cannot 
afford to thus decrease the value of their property or increase 
the burden of their debts. 



424 Appendix. 

In 1878 Mr. Carlisle said : " Mankind will be fortunate 
indeed if the annual production of gold and silver coin shall 
keep pace with the annual increase of population and indus- 
try." I repeat this assertion. All of the gold and silver 
annually available for coinage, when converted into coin at 
the present ratio, will not, in my judgment, more than supply 
our monetary needs. 

In supporting the act of 1890, known as the Sherman Act, 
Senator Sherman, on June 5 of that year, said : 

" Under the law of February, 1878, the purchase of 
$2,000,000 worth of silver bullion a month has by coinage 
produced annually an average of nearly $3,000,000 per month 
for a period of twelve years, but this amount, in view of the 
retirement of the bank notes, will not increase our currency in 
proportion to our increasing population. If our present cur- 
rency is estimated at $1,400,000,000, and our population is 
increasing at the ratio of three per cent per annum, it would 
require $42,000,000 increased circulation each year to keep 
pace with the increase of population; but, as the increase of 
population is accompanied by a still greater ratio of increase 
of wealth and business it was thought that an immediate 
increase of circulation might be obtained by larger purchases 
of silver bullion to an amount sufficient to make good the 
retirement of bank notes and keep pace ^vith the growth of 
population. Assuming that $54,000,000 a year of additional 
currency is needed upon this basis, that amount is provided for 
in this bill by the issue of Treasury notes in exchange for bull- 
ion at the market price." 

If the United States then needed more than forty-two 
millions annually to keep pace with population and business, 
it now, w^ith a larger population, needs a still greater annual 
addition ; and the United States is only one nation among 
many. Our opponents make no adequate provision for the 
increasing monetary needs of the world. 

In the second place, a change in the ratio is not necessary. 
Hostile legislation has decreased the demand for silver and 
lowered its price when measured by gold, while this same 
hostile legislation, by increasing the demand for gold, has 
raised the value of gold when measured by other forms of 
property. 



Appendix. 425 

We are told that the restoration of bimetallism would be a 
hardship upon those who have entered into contracts payable 
in gold coin, but this is a mistake. It will be easier to obtain 
the gold with which to meet a gold contract, when most of 
the people can use silver, than it is now, when every one is 
trying to secure gold. 

The Chicago platform expressly declares in favor of such 
legislation as may be necessary to prevent for the future, the 
demonetization of any kind of legal tender money by private 
contract. Such contracts are objected to on the ground that 
they are against public policy. No one questions the right 
of Legislatures to fix the rate of interest which can be col- 
lected by law ; there is far more reason for preventing private 
individuals from setting aside legal tender law. The money 
which is by law made a legal tender, must in the course of 
ordinary business, be accepted by ninety-nine out of every 
one hundred persons. Why should the one huudredth man 
be permitted to exempt himself from the general rule.? 
Special contracts have a tendency to increase the demand for a 
particular kind of money, and thus force it to a premium. 
Have not the people a right to say that a comparatively few 
individuals shall not be permitted to derange the financial 
system of the nation in order to collect a premium in case 
they succeed in forcing one kind of money to a premium? 

There is another argument to which I ask your attention. 
Some of the more zealous opponents of free coinage point to 
the fact that thirteen months must elapse between the election 
and the first regular session of the next Congress, and assert 
that during that time, in case people declare themselves in 
favor of free coinage, all loans will be withdrawn and all 
mortgages foreclosed. If these are merely prophecies in- 
dulged in by those who have forgotten the provisions of the 
Constitution, it \vill be sufficient to remind them that the 
President is empowered to convene Congress in extraordinary 
session whenever the public good requires such action. If, in 
November, the people by their ballots declare themselves in 
favor of the immediate restoration of bimetallism, the system 
can be inaugurated within a few months. 

If, however, the assertion that loans will be withdrawn 
and mortgages foreclosed is made to prevent such political ac- 



426 Appendix. 

tion as the people may believe to be necessary for the preser- 
Taiton of their rights, then a new and vital issue is raised. 
Whenever it is necessary for the people as a whole to obtain 
consent from the owners of money and the changers of money 
before they can legislate upon financial questions, we shall 
have passed from a democracy to a plutocracy. But that time 
has not yet arrived. Threats and intimidations will be of no 
avail. The people who, in 1776, rejected the doctrine that 
kings rule by right divine, will not, in this generation, sub- 
scribe to the doctrine that money is omnipotent. 

In conclusion, permit me to say a word in regard to interna- 
tional bimetallism. We are not opposed to an international 
agreement looking to the restoration of bimetallism throughout 
the world. The advocates of free coinage have on all occasions 
shown their willingness to co-operate with other nations in 
the reinstatement of silver, but they are not willing to await 
the pleasure of other governments when immediate relief is 
needed by the people of the United States, and they further 
believe that independent action offers better assurance of inter- 
national bimetallism than servile dependence upon foreign aid. 
For more than twenty years we have invited the assistance of 
European nations, but all progress in the direction of inter- 
national bimetallisna has been blocked by the opposition of 
those who derive a pecuniary benefit from the appreciation of 
gold. How long must we wait for bimetallism to be brought 
to us by those who profit by monometallism ? If the double 
standard will bring benefits to our people, who will deny them 
the right to enjoy those benefiits? If our opponents would 
admit the right, the ability arid the duty of our people to act 
for themselves on all public questions without the assistance 
and regardless of the wishes of other nations, and then pro- 
pose the remedial legislation w^hich they consider sufficient, 
Ave could meet them in the field of honorable debate ; but, 
when they assert that this nation is helpless to protect the 
rights of its own citizens, we challenge them to submit the 
issue to a people whose patriotisim has never been appealed 
to in vain. 

We shall not offend other nations when w^e declare the 
right of the American people to govern themselves, and, 
without let or hindrance from without, decide upon every 



Appendix. 427 

question presented for their consideration. In taking this 
position, we simply maintain the dignity of seventy milhon 
citizens who are second to none in their capacity for self-gov- 
ernment. 

The gold standard has compelled the American people to 
pay an ever-increasing tribute to the creditor nations of the 
w^orld — a tribute which no one dares to defend. I assert that 
national honor requires the United States to secure justice for 
all its citizens as well as to do justice to all its creditors. For 
a people like ours, blest wath natural resources of surpassing 
richness, to proclaim themselves impotent to frame' a financial 
system suited to their own needs, is humiliating beyond the 
po^ver of language to describe. We cannot enforce respect 
for our foreign policy so long as we confess ourselves unable 
to frame our own financial policy. 

Honest differences of opinion have always existed, and 
ever will exist, as to the- legislation best calculated to pro- 
mote the public weal ; but, when it is seriously asserted that 
this nation must bow to the dictation of other nations and 
accept the policies which they insist upon, the right of self- 
government is assailed, and until that question is settled all 
other questions are insignificant. 

Citizens of New York : I have traveled from the center 
of the continent to the seaboard that I might, in the very be- 
ginning of the campaign, bring you greeting from the people 
of the West and South and assure you that their desire is not 
to destroy but to build up. They invite you to accept the 
principles of a living faith rather than listen to those who preach 
the gospel of despair and advise endurance of the ills you 
have. The advocates of free coinage believe that, in striving 
to secure the immediate restoration of bimetallism, they are 
laboring in your behalf as well as in their own behalf. A 
few of your people may prosper under present conditions, but 
the permanent welfare of New York rests upon the producers 
of \vealth. This great city is built upon the commerce of 
the nation and must suffer if that commerce is impaired. You 
cannot sell unless the people have money ^vith which to buy, 
and they cannot obtain the money with ^vhich to buy unless 
they are able to sell their products at remunerative prices. 
Production of wealth goes before the exchange of wealth ; 



428 Appendix. 

those who create must secure a profit before they have any- 
thing to share with others. You cannot afford to join the 
moneychangers in supporting a financial policy which, by 
destroying the purchasing power of the products of toil, must 
in the end discourage the creation of wealth. 

I ask, I expect, your co-operation. It is true that a few of 
your financiers would fashion a new figure — a figure repre- 
senting Columbia, her hands bound fast with fetters of gold 
and her face turned toward the East, appealing for assistance 
to those who live beyond the sea — but this figure can never ex- 
press your idea of this nation. You will rather turn for in- 
spiration to the heroic statue which guards the entrance to 
your city — a statue as patriotic in conception as it is colossal 
in proportion. It was the gracious gift of a sister Republic 
and stands upon a pedestal which w^as built by the American 
people. That figure — Liberty enlightening the world — is 
emblematic of the mission of our nation among the nations 
of the earth. With a Government which derives its powers 
from the consent of the governed, secures to all the people 
freedom of conscience, freedom of thought and freedom of 
speech, guarantees equal rights to all and promises special 
privileges to none, the United States should be an example in 
all that is good and the leading spirit in every movement 
which has for its object the uplifting of the human race. 



^^ 



Appendix. 429 



LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE OF HON. W. J. BRYAN, 



Lincoln, Neb., Sept. 9, 1896. 

Hon. Stephen M. White and others^ members of the Notifica' 
tion Com?nittee of the Democratic National Convention : 

Gentlemen : I accept the nomination tendered by you on 
behalf of the Democratic party, and in so doing desire to 
assure you that I fully appreciate the high honor which such 
a, nomination confers and the grave responsibilities which 
accompany an election to the Presidency of the United States. 
So deeply am I impressed with the magnitude of the power 
invested by the Constitution in the Chief Executive of the 
nation, and w^ith the enormous influence which he can wield 
for the benefit or injury of the people, that I wish to enter the 
office, if elected, free from every personal desire except the 
desire to prove worthy the confidence of my country. Human 
judgment is fallible enough when unbiased by selfish consid- 
erations, and in order that I may not be tempted to use the 
patronage of the office to advance any personal ambition, I 
hereby announce, wuth all the emphasis which words can 
express, my fixed determination not under any circumstances 
to be a candidate for re-election if this campaign results in my 
election. 

I have carefully considered the platform adopted by the 
Democratic National Convention, and unqualifiedly indorse 
each plank thereof. 

Our institutions rest upon the proposition that all men, 
being created equal, are entitled to equal consideration at the 
hands of the Government. Because all men are created equal 
it follow^s that no citizen has a natural right to injure any other 
citizen. The main purpose of government being to protect all 
citizens in the enjoyment of life, liberty, and pursuit of happi- 
ness, this purpose must lead the government, first, to avoid 



480 Appendix. 

acts of affirmative injustice, and second, to restrain each cit- 
izen from trespassing upon the rights of any other citizen. 

A democratic form of government is conducive to the 
highest civilization because it opens before eacli individual the 
greatest opportunities for development and stimulates to the 
highest endeavor by insuring to each the full enjoyment of all 
the rewards of toil except such contribution as is necessary to 
support the government v^hich protects him. Democracy is 
indifferent to pedigree ; it deals with the individual rather than 
with his ancestors. Democracy ignores differences in wealth. 
Neither riches nor poverty can be invoked in behalf of or 
against any citizen. Democracy known no creed, recognizing 
the right of each individual to worship God according to the 
dictates of his own conscience. It welcomes all to a common 
brotherhood, and guarantees equal treatment to all, no matter 
in which church or through what forms they commune with 
the creator. 

Having discussed portions of the platform at the time of 
its adoption and again when your letter of notification was 
formally delivered, it will not be necessary at this time to 
touch upon all the subjects embraced in the party's declara- 
tion. 

A DUAL GOVERNMENT. 

Honest differences of opinion have ever existed and ever 
will exist as to the most effective means of securing domestic 
tranquility, but no citizen fails to recognize at all times and 
under all circumstances the absolute necessity for the prompt 
and vigorous enforcement of the law and the preservation of 
the public peace. In a government like ours law is but the 
crystalization of the will of the people ; without it the citizen 
is neither secure in the enjoyment of life and liberty, nor pro- 
tected in the pursuit of happiness. Without obedience to law 
government is impossible. The Democratic party is pledged 
to defend the Constitution, and enforce the laws of the United 
States, and it is also pledged to respect and preserve the dual 
scheme of government instituted by the founders of the 
Republic. The name, United States, was happily chosen. 
It combines the idea of national strength with the idea of 
local self-government and suggests " an indissoluble union of 



Appendix. 431 

indestructible States." Our Revolutionary fathers, fearing- 
the tendencies toward centralization as well as the dangers of 
disintegration, guarded against both, and national safety as 
well as domestic security is to be found in the careful observ- 
ance of the limitations which they impose. It will be noticed 
that, while the United States guarantees to every State a 
republican form of government and is empowered to protect 
each State against invasion, it is not authorized to interfere in 
the domestic affairs of any State except upon application of 
the legislature of the State, or upon the application of the 
executive \vhen the legislature cannot be convened.. 

This provision rests upon the sound theory that the people 
of the State, acting through their legally chosen representa- 
tives, because of their more intimate acquaintance with local 
conditions are better qualified than the President to judge of 
the necessity for Federal as-^istance. Those who framed our 
Constitution wisely determined to make as broad an applica- 
tion of the principles of local self-government as circumstances 
would permit, and we cannot dispute the correctness of the 
position- taken by them without expressing a distrust of the 
people themselves. 

ECONOMY. 

Since governments exist for the protection of the rights of 
the people and not for their spoliation, no expenditure of pub- 
lic money can be justified unless that expenditure is necessary 
for the honest, economical and efficient administration of the 
Government. In determining what appropriations are neces- 
sary, the interest of those who pay the taxes should be con- 
sulted rather than the wishes of those who receive or disburse 
public moneys. 

BONDS. 

An increase in the bonded debt of the United States at 
this time is entirely without excuse. The issue of the interest- 
bearing bonds within the last few years has been defended on 
the ground that they were necessary to secure gold with which 
to redeem United States notes and Treasury notes, but this 
necessity has been imaginary rather than real. Instead of 
exercising the legal right vested in the United States to 
redeem its coin in either gold or silver, the executive branch 



432 Appendix. 

of the Government has followed a precedent established by a 
former administration and surrendered the option to the 
holder of the obligations. This administrative policy leaves 
the government at the mercy of those who find a pecuniary 
profit in bond issues. The fact that the dealers in money and 
securities have been able to deplete or protect the Treasury, 
according to their changing whims, shows how dangerous it 
is to permit them to exercise a controlling influence over the 
Treasury Department. The Government of the United States, 
when administered in the interests of all the people, is able to 
establish and enforce its financial policy not only without the 
aid of syndicates, but in spite of any opposition which 
syndicates may present. To assert that the Government is 
dependent upon the good will or assistance of any portion of 
the people other than a constitutional majority is to assert 
that we have a government in form but without vital force. 

NATIONAL BANK CURRENCY. 

The position taken by the platform against the issue of 
paper money by national banks is supported by the highest 
Democratic authority as well as demanded by the interests of 
the people. The present attempt of the national banks to 
force the retirement of United States notes and Treasury 
notes in order to secure a basis for a larger issue of their own 
notes illustrates the danger which arises from permitting them 
to issue their paper as acirculating medium. The national bank 
note, being redeemable in lawful money, has never been 
better than the United States note, which stands behind it, 
and yet the banks persistently demand that these United 
States notes, which draw no interest, shall give place to 
interest-bearing bonds in order that the banks may collect 
the interest which the people now save. To empower 
national banks to issue circulating notes is to grant a valuable 
• privilege to a favored class, surrender to private corporations 
the control over the volume of paper money, and build up a 
class which will claim a vested interest in the nation's financial 
policy. Our United States notes, commonly known as green- 
backs, being redeemable in either gold or silver at the option 
of the government and not at the option of the holder, are 



Appendix. 433 

safer and cheaper for the people than national bank notes 
based upon interest-bearing bonds. 

THE MONROE DOCTRINE. 

A dignified but firm maintenance of the foreign policy 
first set forth by President Monroe, and reiterated by the 
Presidents who have succeeded him, instead of arousing hos- 
tility abroad is the best guarantee of amicable relations with 
other nations. 

It is better for all concerned that the United States should 
resist any extension of European authority in the Western 
hemisphere rather than invite the continued irritation which 
would necessarily result from any attempt to increase the in- 
fluence of monarchical institutions in that portion of the Amer- 
icas which has been dedicated to republican governments. 

PENSIONS. 

No nation can afford to be unjust to its defenders. The 
care of those who have suffered injury in the military and 
naval service of the country is a sacred duty. A nation 
which, like the United States, relies upon voluntary service 
rather than upon a large standing army, adds to its own 
security when it makes generous provisions for those who 
have risked their lives in its defense and for those who are 
dependent upon them. 

THE PRODUCERS OF WEALTH. 

Labor creates capital. Until wealth is produced by the 
application of brain and muscle to the resources of this coun- 
try there is nothing to divide among the non-producing classes 
of society. Since the producers of wealth create the nation's 
prosperity in time of peace, and defend the nation's flag in 
time of peril, their interests ought at all times to be consid- 
ered by those who stand in official positions. The Demo- 
cratic party has ever found its voting strength among those 
who are proud to be known as the common people, and it 
pledges itself to propose and enact such legislation as is neces- 
sary to protect the masses in the free exercise of every political 

28 



484 Appendix. 

right and in tlieir enjoyment of their just share of the rewards 
of their labor. 

ARBITRATION. 

I desire to give special emphasis to the plank which 
recommends such legislation as is necessary to secure the arbi- 
tration of diflPerences between employers engaged in interstate 
commerce and their employees. Arbitration is not a new 
idea — it is simply an extension of the court of justice. The 
laboring men of the country have expressed a desire for arbi- 
tration and the railroads cannot reasonably object to the de- 
cisions rendered by an impartial tribunal. Society has an in- 
terest even greater than the interest of employer or employee, 
and has a right to protect itself by courts of arbitration against 
the growing inconvenience and embarrassment occasioned by 
disputes between those who own the great arteries of com- 
merce on the one hand and the laborers who operate them on 
the other. 

IMMIGRATION. 

While the Democratic party welcomes to the country 
those who come with love for our institutions and with the 
determination and ability to contribute to the strength and 
greatness of our nation, it is opposed to the dumping of the 
criminal classes upon our shores and to the iinportation of 
either pauper or contract labor to compete with American 
labor. 

INJUNCTIONS. 

The recent abuses which have grown out of injunction 
proceedings have been so emphatically condemned by public 
opinion that the Senate bill providing for trial by jury in 
certain contest cases will meet with general approval. 

TRUSTS. 

The Democratic party is opposed to trusts. It will be 
recreant to its duty to the people if it recognizes either the 
moral or the legal right of these great aggregations of wealth 
to stifle competition, bankrupt rivals, and then prey upon 
society. Corporations are the creatures of law, and they must 



Appendix. 435 

not be permitted to pass from under the control of the power 
which created ; they are permitted to exist on the theory that 
they advance the public weal and they must not be allowed to 
use their powers for the public injury. 

RAILROADS. 

The right of the United States Government to regulate 
interstate commerce cannot be questioned, and the necessity 
for the vigorous exercise of that right is becoming more and 
more imperative. The interests of the whole people require 
such an enlargement of the powers of the Interstate Com- 
merce Commission as will enable it to prevent discrimination 
between persons and places and protect patrons from unrea- 
sonable charges. 

PACIFIC RAILROADS. 

The government cannot afford to discriminate between its 
debtors, and must therefore prosecute its legal claims against 
the Pacific railroads. Such a policy is necessary for the pro- 
tection of the rights of patrons as well as for the interests of 
the Government. 

CUBA. 

The people of the United States, happy in the enjoyment 
of the blessings of free government, feel a generous sympathy 
toward all \vho are endeavoring to secure like blessings for 
themselves. This sympathy, while respecting all treaty obli- 
gations, is especially active and earnest when excited by the 
struggles or neighbormg peoples, who, like the Cubans, are 
near enough to observe the workings of a government whiclx 
derives all its authority from the consent of the governed. 

THE CIVIL SERVICE. 

That the American people are not in favor of life tenure 
in the Government service is evident from the fact that they, 
as a rule, make frequent changes in their official representa- 
tives when those representatives are chosen by ballot. A 
permanent office-holding class is not in harmony with our 
institutions. A fixed term in appointive offices, except where 



436 Appen 



DIX. 



the Federal Constitution now provides otherwise, would open 
the public service to a larger number of citizens without im- 
pairing its efficiency. 

THE TERRITORIES. 

The territorial form of government is temporary in its 
nature and should give way as soon as the territory is suffi- 
ciently advanced to take its place among the States. New 
Mexico, Oklahoma, and Arizona are entitled to statehood, and 
their admission is demanded by the material and political 
interests. The demand of the platform that officials appointed 
to administer the government of the Territories, the District 
of Columbia, and Alaska should be bona fide residents of the 
Territories or District is entirely in keeping with the Demo- 
cratic theory of home rule. I am also heartily in sympathy 
with the declaration that all public lands should be reserved 
•for the establishment of free homes for American citizens. 

WATERWAYS. 

The policy of improving the great waterways of the 
country is justified by the national character of those water- 
ways and the enormous tonnage borne upon them. Experi-. 
ence has demonstrated that continuing appropriations are in 
the end more economical than single appropriations separated 
by long intervals. 

THE TARIFF. 

It is not necessary to discuss the tarifF Question at this 
time. Whatever may be the individual view of citizens as to 
the relative merits of protection and tariff reform, all must 
recognize that until the money question is fully and finally 
settled the American people will not consent to the consider- 
ation of any other important question. Taxation presents a 
problem which in some form is continually present, and a 
postponement of definite action upon it involves no sacrifice 
of personal opinion or political principles, but the crisis pre- 
sented by financial conditions cannot be postponed. Tremen- 
dous results will follow the action taken by the United States 
on the money question, and delay is impossible. The people 



Appendix. 437 

of this nation, sitting as a high court, must render judgment 
in the cause which greed is prosecuting against humanity. 
The dicision will either give hope and inspiration to those 
who toil or "shut the doors of mercy on mankind." In the 
presence of this overshadowing issue differences upon minor 
questions must be laid aside in order that there may be united 
action among those who are determined that progress toward 
an universal gold standard shall be stayed and the gold and 
silver coinage of the Constitution restored. 

W. J. Bryan. 



438 Appendix. 



MR. SEWALL'S SPEECH OF ACCEPTANCE. 



New York City, August 12, 1896. 

Mr. Sewall : Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Com- 
mittee : You have given me official notice of my selection by 
the Democratic National Convention as its candidate for 
Vice-President. 

For the courteous terms of your message, and the kind per- 
sonal expressions, I thank you. 

Having been present at that great Convention, I can more 
truly estimate the honor its action has conferred. 

It was the greatest and most earnest Convention in the 
history of our party. It was closer and more in touch with 
the people. The delegates were there to voice the sentiments 
of their constituents, the people of the party, for the people of 
the party controlled and conducted that Convention. 

The Democracy of the country realize that all the great 
principles of our party are as potent and e>!sential to the well- 
being of the country to-day as they have always been, and as 
they ever will be, but the overshadowing issue before the 
country now, made dominant by the distressed condition pre- 
vailing throughout our land, is the demand for reform in our 
existing monetary system. 

Our party, and, we believe, a great majority of the Amer- 
ican people are convinced that the legislation of '78 demone- 
tizing silver was a wrong inflicted upon our country which 
should and must be righted. 

We believe that the single gold standard has so narrowed 
the base of our monetary structure that it is unstable and 
unsafe, and so dwarfed it, in its development and in its power 
to furnish the necessary financial blood to the nation, that 
commercial and industrial paralysis has followed. 

We believe that we need, and must have, the broad and 



Appendix. 439 

■expanding foundation of both gold and silver to support a 
monetary system strong and stable, capable of meeting the 
demand of a growing country and an industrious, energetic 
and enterprising people, a system that will not be weakened 
and panic stricken by every foreign draft upon us, a system 
that will maintain a parity of just values and the nation's 
money and protect us from the frequent fluctuations of to-day, 
so disastrous to every business and industry of the land. 

We demand the free coinage of silver, the opening of our 
mints to both money metals without discrimination, the return 
to the money of our fathers, the money of the Constitution, 
gold and silver. 

We believe this is the remedy and the only remedy for the 
evil from which we are now suffering ; the evil that is now so 
fast devastating and impoverishing our land and people, 
bringing poverty to our homes and bankruptcy to our busi- 
ness, which, if allowed to continue, will grow until our very 
institutions are threatened. 

The demonetization of silver has thrown the whole primary 
money function on gold, appreciating its value and purchas- 
ing power. Restore the money function to silver and silver 
will appreciate and its purchasing power increase. Take 
from gold its monopoly and its value will be reduced, and in 
due course the parity of the two metals will again obtain under 
natural causes. 

We shall then have a broad and unlimited foundation for 
a monetary system commensurate with our country's needs 
and future development, not the unsafe basis of to-day reduced 
by half by the removal of silv'er and continually undermined 
by foreigners carrying from us our gold. 

This is the reform to which we are pledged, the reform the 
people demand, the return to the monetary system of over 
eighty years of our national existence. 

The Democratic party has already given its approval and 
its pledge. Our opponents admit the wisdom of the principle 
for which we contend, but ask us to await permission and 
co-operation of other nations. 

Our people will not wait. They will not ask permission 
of any nation on earth to relieve themselves of the cause of 



440 Appendix. 

their distress. The issue has been made. The people stand 
ready to render their verdict next November. 

Mr. Chairman, unequivocally and through sincere convic- 
tion I endorse the platform on which I have been nominated. 

I believe we are right ; the people are with us, and what 
the people declare is always right and must prevail. 

I accept the nomination, and with the people's conforma- 
tion, every effort of which God shall render me capable will 
be exerted in support of the principles involved. 



Appendix. - 441 



MR. SEWALL'S LETTER OF ACCEPTANCE. 



Stephen B. White^ Chairman^ and Members of the Notifica- 
tion Committee: 

Gentlemen : — I have the honor to accept in writing, as I 
have already done verbally, the nomination tendered me by 
you on behalf of the Democratic party as its candidate for 
Vice President of the United States. And in so doing I am 
glad, first, to express my satisfaction that the platform of our 
party, which has commanded my lifelong allegiance, is hon- 
estly and fully declaratory of all the principles, and especially 
of the absorbing financial issue upon which, as you say, I 
took my stand " when the hour of triumph seemed remote and 
when arrogant money-changers throughout the world boasted 
that the conquest of the American masses was completed." 

These principles have been of late in abeyance, but only 
because those whom we trusted to maintain them have failed 
to do so. These principles can never die. We have rescued 
our party from those who, under the influence of the money 
power, have controlled and debased it. Our mission now is 
to rescue from this same power and its foreign allies our own 
beloved country. This is the first and highest duty imposed 
by our party's platform ; upon the performance of this duty 
all other reforms must wait. The test of party principles is 
the government they assure ; the proof of good government is 
a contented and happy people ; the supreme test of both is 
the ability to guide the country through crises as well as to 
administer the government in ordinary times. 

A CRISIS IS AT HAND. 

Our people now face a crisis, a^ crisis more serious than 
any since the war. To what party shall they turn in their 
dire emergency.'' It is true that the present crisis may not 
involve all equally ; that there are those who do not suffer 



442 Appendix. 

now and who may not suffer should the crisis threatened by 
the gold standard come on in all its fury. Human selfishness 
Tuakes these deaf to all appeals, but to these, fortunately, the 
Democratic party has never needed to appeal to win its bat- 
tles, nor does it now, save as there are some among them who 
can rise superior to self in the sacrifice which such a crisis 
demands of every patriot. We are told that the country has 
prospered under the present monetary standard ; that its wealth 
has enormously increased. Granted so, but in whose hands? 
In the hands of the toilers, the producers, the farmers, the 
miners, the fabricators in the factories, the framers of the 
nation's wealth in peace, its defenders in war? Have they 
the prosperity which was theirs so late as even twenty years 
ago? I deny it. They deny it. None affirm it save those 
whose interests it is to do so — whose profit would diminish 
as prosperity returns to those on whose distress they thrive. 

All is indeed right between capital and labor. The " best 
money in the world " is none too good for those who have got 
it, but how is it with 90 per cent of our people who have 
" got it to get?" How is it with those who must buy this 
*'best money in the world" ^vith the products of their own 
labor? These are the people for whom the Democratic party 
would legislate. What is the best money for these? is the 
question for all to ask who really love this land. How else 
can you increase labor's purchasing power, but by increasing 
the price of labor's product? Is it a fair measure of values 
that in our great producing section ten bushels of potatoes 
must be paid for a dollar, ten bushels of oats for a dollar, six 
bushels of corn for a dollar, three bushels of wheat, and all 
other products of the soil and mines and the labor of all wage 
earners at the same ratio ? 

IS THIS HONEST MONEY? 

Does any fair mind say this is honest money that forces 
«uch an exchange, and if it is not a fair exchange, is it honest, 
is it less than robbery? This is the condition to which the 
single standard has brought us. Under it the appreciation of 
the " best money of the world" has increased the wealth of 
the rich, and for the same reason has increased the debt of 
the debtor. So it has been, so under the present standard it 



Appendix. 443 

must continue to be. Witli these object lessons about me, 
little need we have for history and statistics and the studies of 
scholars. Little satisfaction it is to us that they have warned 
us long since of the deadly evil of the gold standard. It has 
brought us at last to the parting of the ways. Whither shall 
the people go? In the way that has led to their enslavement, 
or into that which offers them their only chance to regain in- 
dividual liberty, lasting prosperity and happiness? 

Let our opponents charge us with creating class distinc- 
tion. Alas for the republic, they are already here, created 
by the republican policy of the last thirty years ; created by 
the very system we would no\v overthrow and destroy. Nor 
do we raise a sectional issue. The nomination you tender 
repels the charge. None know better than I that this nomi- 
nation is meant as no personal tribute, but as an assurance 
that our party is a nonsectional party. Not by our policy, 
but only by the continuance of the gold standard can section- 
alism be revived. Neither shall our opponents be permitted to 
terrify the people by predictions that temporary disturbance or 
panic will come from the policy we propose. The American 
people will be loyal to the nation's money, will stand be- 
hind and maintain it at whatever value they themselves may 
put upon it. 

^VHAT LINCOLN SAID. 

Once before in the present generation have out people 
been called upon to face a momentous crisis. What then said 
Mr. Lincoln, the chosen leader of the plain people of the 
land? Was he awed by threats or weakened by the wily per- 
suasion of the false friends who, as to-day, pleaded for com- 
promise with wrong? His ans^ver was : 

" If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our 
duty fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of 
these sophistical contrivances w^herewith we are so industri- 
ously plied and belabored ; contrivances such as groping for 
some middle ground between right and wrong, reversing the 
divine rule and calling not the sinner but the righteous to 
repentance ; such as the invocations to Washington, imploring 
men to unsay what Washington said and undo what Wash- 
ington did. Neither let us be slandered from our duty by 
false accusations against us. Let us have faith that right 



444 . Appendix. 

makes might, and in that faith let us to the end dare to do 
our duty as we understand it." 

We know well the nature of the struggle in which we are 
engaged; we are anxious only that the people of the land 
shall understand it and then our battle is won. Behind the 
strong entrenchment of the gold standard are gathered all 
those favored classes of the land. Avarices and unholy greed 
are there ; every trust and combination are there. Every 
monopoly is there, led by the greatest monopoly of all, the 
monopoly of the power of gold. With us in our assault upon 
these entrenchments are all these unselfish men who, not now 
suffering themselves, cannot rest content with conditions so 
full of suft'ering for others, and that vaster number of our 
people who have been sacrificed to the small and selfish class 
who now resist their attempts to regain their ancient rights 
and liberties. These are the patriots of 1896, the foes of a 
" dishonest dollar," which enriches 10 per cent of our people 
to rob the rest ; the defenders of the homes of the land, the 
public morals and the public faith, both of which alike for- 
bid the payment of government obligations in a coin costlier 
to those \vho have to pay it than that the contract calls for ; 
the defenders of the honor of the nation whose most sacred 
charge is to care for the welfare of all its citizens. 

The free and unlimited coinage of silver is the sole remedy 
with which to check the \vrongs of today, to undo the ruin of 
of the past, and for our inspiration we have the justice of our 
cause and those cherished principles of Jefferson and Jackson 
which shall be our guide on our return to power — " Equal and 
exact justice to all men," absolute acquiescence in decisions of 
the majority, the vital principles of Republics, the honest 
payment of our debts and the sacred preservation of the public 
faith. 

Profoundly sensible of the high honor of the nomination 
you tender, I am, truly yours. 

Arthur Sewall. 



Appendix. 



445 



VICE PRESIDENTS AND ASSISTANT 
SECRETARIES. 



The following are the Vice Presidents and Assistant 
Secretaries selected by the several delectations and adopted 
by the Committee on Permanent Organization, as per 
report at page 167. 

VICE PRESIDENTS, 



Alabama— John W. Tomlinson. 
Arkansas— James H. Berry. 
California— Geo. E. Church. 
Colorado — James B. Grant. 
-Connecticut — Miles B.Preston. 
Delaware — Henry C. Pennington. 
Florida— J. Ed. O'Brien. 
Georgia — B. M. Davis. 
Idaho — William H. Dewey. 
Illinois — Chas. K. Ladd. 
Indiana — John B. Stole. 
Iowa — M. H. King. 
Kansas— James McKenstry. 
Kentucky — R. F. Peake. 
Louisiana — Peter Farrell. 
Maine — Edward B. Winslow. 
Maryland — Richard M. Venable. 
Massachusetts— Wm. L. Douglass. 
Michigan — James F. Maloney. 
Minnesota — Lagun Brackeridge. 
Mississippi — W. G. Yerger. 
Missouri — Wm. N. Eads. 
Montana — S. F. Hauser. 
Nebraska — Charles H. Brown. 
Nevada— John Sparks. 



New Jersey — James J. Bergen 
New York— James D. Bell. 
North Carolina — J. R. Webster. 
North Dakota — (None reported). 
Ohio — John H. Blacken. 
Oregon — John W. Howard. 
Pennsylvania — B. F. Meyers. 
Rhode Island —Jesse H.Metcalf, 
South Carolina — John G. Evans. 
South Dakota — Edw. Cook. 
Tennessee — Frank Boyd. 
Texas — John Lovejoy. 
Utah— R. C. Chambers. 
Vermont — J. W. Gordon, 
Virginia — J. R. Wingfield. 
Washington — Chas. A. Darling. 
West Virginia — J. H. Miller. 
Wisconsin — M, C. Mead. 
Wyoming — Robt. Foote. 
iVlaska— James Carroll. 
Arizona — A. F. Cornish. 
Dist. of Columbia — Wm.Holmead. 
Indi-an Terr. — Harry Campbell. 
New Mexico— (None reported). 
Oklahoma— J. H, Maxey. 



New Hampshire — Gordon Woodbury, 



secretaries. 

Alabama — Leopold Strauss. Colorado 
Arkansas — J. N. Smithee. 



California— H. E. Wise. 



Olney Newall. 
Connecticut — Wm. Kennedy. 
Delaware — Dr. B. L. Lewis. 



446 



Appendix. 



Florida — Nat. R. Walker. 
Georgia— -R. O. Howard. 
Idaho— John T. Sheeley. 
Illinois— Josh. Martin. 
Indiana — S. E. Cook. 
Iowa— S. A. Brewster. 
Kansas — C. W. Brandenburg. 
Kentucky— Benj. V. Smith. 
Louisiana — L. H. Marren. 
Maine — Fred. Emery Beane. 
Maryland— Henry R. Lewis. 
Massachusetts — John F. O'Brien. 
Michigan — Martin J. Cavanaugh. 
Minnesota — John Sheehy. 
Mississippi — J. R. Stowers. 
Missouri — Geo. W. Allen. 
Montana — (None reported). 
Nebraska — F. A. Thompson. 
Nevada — (None reported). 
New Hampshire — J. J. Doyle. 
New Jersey — Wm. B. Edwards. 
New York— Geo. B. McClellan. 
North Carolina — W. C. Uowd. 



North Dakota— F. A. Wellson. 
Ohio— Geo. S. Long. 
Oregon — (None reported). 
Pennsylvania — Miller S.Allen. 
Rhode Island— M. A. McNamee. 
South Carolina — M. B. McSweeny- 
South Dakota — F. M. Stover. 
Tennessee — J. W. N. Burkett. 
Texas — A. S. Burleson. 
Utah— E. A. McDaniel. 
Vermont— J. W. McGarry. -'' 
Virginia — W. P. Barksdale. 
Washington — Thomas Maloney. 
West Virginia — John J.Cornwell. 
Wisconsin — Lewis A. Lang. 
Wyoming — J. W. Sam man. 
Alaska — Karl Koehl-er. 
Arizona— H. H. Logan. 
Dist. of Columbia — Geo. Killeen. 
Indian Terr. — W. P. Thompson. 
New Mexico — (None reported). 
Oklahoma — T. M. Upshaw. 



-f «. ". 1 h 



